At this point, we pretty much have one person to thank for the soundscape of horror. With the scores to his movies from 1978 to 1995 still among the best movie music ever made, John CarpenterOpens in a new tab‘s synthesizer and rock guitar music inspired a generation of composers for modern horror classics like It Follows and The Guest. His score for this year’s Halloween re-quelOpens in a new tab is among his best ever, and the genre is still benefiting from his influence 40 years later. No one knows this better than streaming service Shudder, which now has its very own theme song composed by Carpenter himself.
This track (via EWOpens in a new tab) is absolutely vintage Carpenter, employing his trademark thumping, percussive bass tones and shrieking synthetic strings. Interestingly, it sounds a bit like the score to the 1982 film The Thing, which was one of his only movies he didn’t score himself, instead hiring legendary composer Ennio Morricone who turned in a very Carpenter-esque synth score.The track will be officially unveiled on Shudder as part of a free 24-hour marathon of Carpenter’s original Halloween on, fittingly, October 31. If you don’t have Shudder, you can still catch the marathon via their Shudder TV website hereOpens in a new tab. Most of the time, you’ll only hear the five-second stinger version, which still manages to get in all the great bits.
Featured Image: Sacred Bones
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews hereOpens in a new tab. Follow him on Twitter!Opens in a new tab
