Fearnet's 10 Greatest Horror Movie Music Themes

Fearnet has a great, note-perfect choice of "10 Greatest Horror Movie Music Themes".

Myself, I am crazy about John Harrison's score for "Creepshow". Also: "Phantasm", "The Amityville Horror" (instant shudders from that music!)... and continuing that choir-like trend, "Children of the Corn".

I don't enjoy the "Friday the 13th" films, but Jason's musical cue is definitely a winner ("Kill!" "Ma!")

I also have a huge crush on Fantomas' "The Director's Cut", in which Mike Patton and esteemed friends re-interpret a bunch of film themes to crazed and wonderful effect. A number of choices are horror-related, not least "Ave Satani".

The Warriors

THE WARRIORS

Walter Hill, 1979, USA

The first thing that you find when starting in on Walter’s Hill’s ‘ultimate’ version of "The Warriors" is that it is far from the incendiary, brutally realistic depiction of gang violence that its original riot-causing reputation might lead you to believe. The (online) sources tell a tale of extra security paid for by the film company to supervise theatre screenings, of outbreaks of gang violence at the cinema. Genuine gangs liked it, but apparently couldn’t stand sitting next to rivals to watch it. But this is hardly gritty, terrifying realism; it is probably not even as provocative as "A Clockwork Orange". What it is is far closer to "Sin City", "Creepshow" and "The Hulk" (Ang Lee) than "Romper Stomper", or "Gomorrah". The film freezes and becomes artwork; the artwork pulls back to reveal comic-book panels of scenes; there are wipes and titles that say "Meanwhile" that carry the narrative along. It is conceived as a comic-book come to life, and it is set in the near future. Sol Yurick’s source novel is apparently truly interested in exploring the desperate environment that creates gangs, but Hill moved onto something more fantastic when the studio would not consent to an all black and Hispanic cast. It is this, he believes, that induced him to make "The Warriors" futuristic which, like "A Clockwork Orange", makes more sense of all the crazy dressing up. The superficial details are not sci-fi, so it feels more like a variant New York reality.

It has considerable cult cool, generated by a hip soundtrack that is both sinister synths (much like John Carpenter, courtesy of Barry De Vorzon) and funky soul cuts. It is hip from the variety and outrageousness of the gang costumes and tribal identities, courtesy of great work by costume designers Mary Ann Winston and Bobbie Mannix. It is hip from the smooth, unfussy direction and broody atmosphere, from the constant threat of trial-by-violence. Much of "The Warriors" longevity comes, like all good cult films, from its successful creation of an alternate reality with details that speak far beyond the immediate action. All those gangs, costumes and their history can be imagined and expanded upon by the audience. This is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, you can try out Rockstar Games’ 2005 tie-in beat-em-up role-player for "The Warriors", which is full of expanded character backstories - and a far more brutal, amoral and provocative experience than the original film. The gangland is the seemingly barren and endlessly nocturnal city, overwritten with graffiti and alleviated only by blocks of coloured neon reflections stretching down shiny asphalt. It is both flamboyant and noir-ish. Even when the sun comes up, it’s still possible to imagine as a place where shadows house silent gangs ready to take you down. Somewhere else in the city, where the police are presumably less brutal and loathsome, you might envision John Carpenter’s "Assault on Precinct 13" taking place.

Hill almost starts with what ought to be the grand finale, with all the gangs gathering in one place for a gigantic meeting of rivals. This pays great dividends: once The Warriors have been framed for the murder of Cyrus - (Roger Hill) a warlord who is trying to bring all the gangs together to run the city like some big funky "Can you dig it?!" kingpin (the common enemy: police & authority) - we can look forward with curiosity as to which oddball gang they will run into next. There is a similar trick, or possible influence, in Richard’s Price’s novel "The Wanderers" (1974), where on page two there is a list of gangs, all of which have defining characteristics (Wongs, Pharaohs, Del-Bombers, etc.) and all promising some nasty encounters. It is a novel that William Burroughs called "A deeply moving account of confused and spiritually underprivileged youth"*; and although "The Warriors" is not that film nor "Rebel Without A Cause", it doesn’t forget to shade its colourful characters with a little desperation and deprivation. The most celebrated touch is when the encounter between the beat-up Warriors and tagalong gang girl Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) and a group of bright white preppies becomes a silent bid for dignity.

In enemy territory and with the whole city out for their blood, The Warriors try to make their way back to the beaches of Coney Island. This owes everything to the Greek tale of Anabasis, just as so many of the character names allude to all things classical and mythical. The structure is stripped down but carefully paced: after the opening show-piece, it’s the best part of an hour before the first real gang-on-gang punch-out occurs. Aside from confrontational Ajax (James Remar) and bare-chest outfits, The Warriors aren’t macho poseurs or pit-fighting lunkheads: rather, there is plenty of barely repressed anxiety and vulnerability on display, quietly played out between them, which evokes their need of gang identity for survival in a harsh urban wasteland. And then, come the end, Swan (Michael Beck) looks out across his home with unconcealed disdain. Walter Hill even sidesteps a showdown with The Rogues, even though they have raced to Coney Island especially to take down The Warriors. Rather, he allows the drama to round itself off without unnecessary grandstanding. It is a fine demonstration of how satisfying closure can be dramatically achieved without recourse to the standard punch-up felt needed to resolve so many action films.

Sleek, sparse and atmospheric, "The Warriors" has been adopted by the hip-hop community and outwards, and has generated its own long-term cult. An action film that manages to circumnavigate much of the obvious genre pitfalls, but at the same time still offers skinheads, post-Russ Meyer Siren-like lesbian crews, martial arts clans and baseball bat baddies. Moody, smart enough and thoroughly enjoyable.

* This William Burroughs quote taken from the back cover of: Richard Price, "The Wanderers" (Bloomsbury Classic Reads; 2004 edition).

THE CRAZIES

George A. Romero - USA - 1973

Romero’s less grisly but disturbing variation/development of the themes of "Night Of The Living Dead" perhaps owes more to disaster films of the Seventies than low budget horror. It’s ambitions are admirable, far-reaching on scale and generally successful, but here the rough edges arguably do not enhance the aesthetic (as it did with "Living Dead"). The chief weakness is the soundtrack which is often tinny and sharp to the ear, punctuated by unsubtle machine-gun military drumming and folkish songs. Romero’s intention is clear and steady when demonstrating that during times of disaster, although the initial threat may be, say, biological weapons, the ongoing peril is military incompetence, bureaucracy and people going insane. It's barely allegory. The military red tape causes more harm than good, soldiers mistreat and steal from those they are meant to protect, people that are hysterical are barely distinguishable from those infected with the plague of violence, a violence that is barely suppressed within old ladies by knitting.

There is a classic Romero opening, one which most of his films benefit from. First he introduces a horror that is make-believe, then he pulls back to make it real. The brother tells Barbara that the shambling man in the graveyard of "The Living Dead" is a zombie, and then it turns out that he really is. The father throws away the false horrors of the "Creepshow" comic, only for the boy to find that the corpse-like Creep is real. And so on. It is a methodology that always proves a winner. "The Crazies" opens with a young boy designs to scare his little sister before bedtime, only to see the shadow of his father going berserk and wrecking the house. It is another great, chilling opening that throws the viewer right in the deep end, setting out and stirring up false and real terrors. Later, as happens frequently in Romero, the view pulls back further to reveal that the truest horror is how we react to catastrophe and fear. "The Crazies" may not be considered essential Romero, but it is thick with his disillusion and black humour and shows that Romero was already creating zombie variations long before that was trendy. Rarely has a director so consistently conveyed and balanced fantastic and real horrors and their relationship to one another so successfully.

CREEPSHOW

George A. Romero, 1982, USA

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"Creepshow" has a prologue that is a candidate for the best horror film opening ever. Here’s why I love it: there’s thunder crashing and lightning flashing, and the disciplinarian father is yelling at his son for having a horror comic. What an asshole. That’s Tom Atkins as the asshole and that’s Joe King - horror superstar Stephen’s son - being disciplined. The rhythm of this scene is sublime: the dad chastises and dispenses disgust in the middle ground, the mother agonises in the background, the horror fan in the foreground… the horror fan yells back! "No! It wasn’t like that!" ThunderBOOMCRACK! That’s right, call daddy on his dirty mags. SLAP! Boom! …subside… the storm quietens a little, the kid’s beaten and dad’s the power. And an asshole. He goes outside and throws the comic in the garbage. Some lost chords played by "The Phantom of the Opera" start to play... The comic is called "Creepshow." There’s demonic cackling on the wind. "That’s why God made fathers, babe. That‘s why God made fathers." There are few other film scenes whose cadence has been engraved so deeply in my memory.

Okay, so now we are upstairs and the kid is sitting up in bed, horror posters on the wall, moping. The storm is kicking up again. "I hope you rot in hell!" The curse gargles in his throat and seemingly summons an unearthly sympathiser. And now the music truly kicks in. You are listening to the apex of horror themes now: the piano chords start chiming along with the heavier pounding. There’s a corpse at the window, decayed, almost regal, maybe even melancholy. It’s a real corpse, by the way. Our little fan grins. Our little fan is pounding one fist into his other palm like he knows. He knows vengeance is his. He knows the monsters are on his side. He knows something horrible is gonna happen. Our Creep is cackling, floating into the sky on a wave of animation and beckoning us in.

In this sequence, almost the entire pledge of the horror genre is embodied. You are a fan, it says. And if you are a fan of horror, chances are you harbour a grudge or too, just like fans of action-vengeance films; and maybe you once truly believed in monsters… under the bed, in the closet, in the woods, in the school basement, wherever… and the almost-secret is as much as they scared you, you wanted to be them too. In some not-so-vague unleashed Id-like way, monsters are payback. Yes, says the creep at your window, that’s right. I’m on your side really. Come with me and I’ll show you… The expectation, the sheer promise of this opening is transcendent, thrilling, mouth-watering.

Also note that the openings of all Romero's films are equally as good, and the beginnings of both "Night of the Living Dead" and "Creepshow" both share a dark humour and nail a horror fan's expectations in particular. But there is a gleeful relish in the latter that gives that little extra shiver.

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That the rest of George Romero’s "Creepshow" more-or-less lives up to this promise is surely remarkable. It is probably true that it is a fun romp at the expense of the evident intelligence of Romero’s earlier films [1], and that the stories are derivative [2] - but it is more the comedy and the stories are also stock types.

When I first saw "Creepshow"… the first four or five times I saw "Creepshow", it scared the hell out of me. I am thinking I must have seen it first when I was maybe fourteen, and I must have rented it out from an obviously unscrupulous local video store, as I was a teenager. A local newsagent doubling as a rental store, in fact, with one corner crammed full of video cases (later, I worked there). A quick search was going to give you a great, ugly, lurid enticing cover. "Creepshow" also had great promotional covers. One with a skeleton, evidently a relative of The Creep (or, as Tom Savini dubbed him, ‘Raoul’) manning the ticket booth of a cinema-slash-crypt. The other being a comic book cover with the horror kid grinningly reading his forbidden comic in bed, The Creep at the window (this time, bafflingly, apparently missing an eye). Now, as every fan knows, there are a lot of great sleazy horror covers fronting inferior films, but this isn’t one of those. It’s a great party movie too, because it’s funny and scary. I remember watching it in a group several times and just waiting for them to jump out of their skins when the hand leaps out of the grave, and when the crate monster does his thing, or chuckling at "I got my caaake," or Hal Holbrook - in a miniature master class in how to cull a laugh from thin air - trying to stifle laughter from his deplorable wife. It’s a very friendly horror film.

The comic book aesthetic is also great fun: screaming people suddenly backgrounded with lightning-shock-horror; and "meanwhiles…" and "later…" indicated with pages and frames flipping. There’s never a subtitle blaring "AARRGGHH!", but it comes close. These comic book effects are used sensibly, for segues, flashbacks and denouements. The stories are comeuppance morality tales. You know who’ll get theirs. Except for Jordy Varrell. Jordy Varrell is clearly tragedy. Stephen King’s performance is broad and gung-ho, following instructions from Romero to play it like Wile E. Coyote; but I swear when he tones it done a hair, stepping out onto the porch to see his yard and the surrounding land covered in unnatural green-glowing vegetation, I swear King manages pathos. Nunkhead Varrell is just smart enough to know he’s doomed, and therein is the tragedy. It may be the lesser of the tales, but it’s unforgettable too. "How else are you gonna do it?" Romero has said many times in defence of the hamminess of King’s performance.

But the acting really, really elevates "Creepshow" into something special. All round, a great selection of actors take it seriously… tongue-in-cheek, but seriously… bringing the archetypal characters to life. Ed Harris’ (!) funky dance. Aunt Bedelia/Viveca Lindfors stepping out of her craziness at the gateway to the graveyard to show the misery on her face. Ted Dansen’s (!!) easy manner and natural charm enabling an instant bond with our unfortunate adulterer. Leslie Nielson (!!!) having a ball as a bad guy, setting up an elaborate, diabolical double-murder. Hal Holbrook truly remarkable with the repressed fury and the humour he pulls just from the modicum of looks… Adrienne Barbeau totally despicable, broad, and yet possessed of glimmers of credibility too. E.G. Marshall gleefully hateful and swearful. Rarely does a horror film hoard a variety of great and differing performances, treating the goofy enterprise with respect.

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And then there is the soundtrack. John Harrison’s soundtrack is just about the quintessential horror score. The "Phantom of the Opera" piano refrain, the spiralling piano whirls, the chattering ghostly choir. Then, on "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Varrell", goofy all-over-the-show music that seems to be scoring a cartoon somewhere else. With "Something to Tide You Over", suddenly we get music that wouldn’t be out-of-place in any Seventies thriller. The buzzes and atonal throbs of "They’re Creeping Up On You" compliment perfectly the white emptiness of the apartment. Even now, when those first piano chords strike up, it’s like the whole relish of horror being played. The Creep cackles and the spectral choir virtually go "Wheee!" with macabre bliss.

The execution of the whole enterprise transcends the genre storylines and even though it will never be considered the classic that "Night of the Living Dead" is, in it’s own way it is just as successful. It is not only a wonderful homage to EC Comics, but a great tribute to the dark joys of horror as a genre too. It would have been great if, as Romero has hinted he wanted, he had made a series of Creepshow anthologies… imagine that: a genre where he not only gave us the "living dead" films, but a handful of fun comic-book horror homages too. I am, of course, dismissing out of hand the "Creepshow" sequels that we actually have. They are merely stock horror that show up how classy the original actually is.

As a footnote, the crate monster evidently terrified me enough to give me nightmares. In the nightmare, it chased me out of buildings, through streets... and I couldn't get rid of it. No matter how much I hid and dodged, it always found me out and I would have to flee again. Finally, I ran to trick it into following me in front of a steamroller... the steamroller struck it, rolled over it from the feet up. All the time its white furry, apish face and mouth full of dagger-like teeth stared at me. And it spoke to me to tell me that it would still come. That wherever I went, it would find me. The steamroller notwithstanding, it seems. This threat of neverending chase and horror made me wake...

[1] - Peter Nicholls, "Fantastic Cinema", (Ebury Press, London, 1984), pg. 103

[2] - Aurum Film Encyclopedia of Horror, (ed. Phil Hardy, Aurum, London, 19930 pg. 375