The Addams Family are known for being creepy, kooky, and altogether ooky. Fortunately, while composer Marc Shaiman embraces the Family’s iconic traits, his score shows just enough restraint to prevent the film from being too over the top. It would […]
Through a combination of Simon Waskow’s score and impressive sound design, Luz feels like a nonstop sonic trip. The film opens with a single shot that carries on for several minutes while noisy yet ponderous synths slowly build up before […]
Pan’s Labyrinth takes place across two slowly converging worlds: one of reality and one of fantasy. Composer Javier Navarrete’s score gives a unique identity to each, while simultaneously tying them together with a shared theme. The film’s “reality” – Francoist […]
While John Carpenter is most often known for using synth, many of his earliest film scores were remarkably piano-driven, such as The Fog. To be clear, The Fog does have plenty of synth, but it isn’t the driving force behind […]
Borrowing from a concept he first explored in The Witch, Mark Korven‘s score for The Lighthouse gives a voice to the film’s monolithic “Lighthouse.” A monotonous, deafening wail roars out intermittently, overwhelming everything. This is the call of the Lighthouse, […]
Unlike the scores of most horror films, composer Christopher Young’s approach to the music of Hellraiser largely avoids anything verging on “scary.” Instead, his synth-heavy score conjures a feeling of grandeur that is more akin to dark fantasy. The main […]
Drone and ambient have increasingly found their way into film music in recent years. However, most of these scores, like Annihilation or First Reformed, stay relatively approachable for those less comfortable with these genres. MMMD (pronounced Mohammad) take these genres […]
Short films present a unique challenge for film composers: their diminutive length makes the music (or lack thereof) all the more noticeable. It’s much easier for a short film to be overscored or for its music to be overwhelming and […]
Home is supposed to be safe, comforting, “where the heart is.” Horror films push against this, perhaps none more famously than The Amityville Horror, in which Lalo Schifrin’s score shows us that home is where hell is. Schifrin makes frightening […]
It may not be surprising that listeners, when hearing a horror score, expect the music to be “scary.” But it’s not a necessity. Pino Donaggio, in his score for Carrie, focuses on the film’s sweet, tender moments rather than the […]
What does it mean to be human? Is it to be loved, to face conflict, to make choices and feel their consequences? In Mica Levi’s score for Under the Skin humanity is anxiety, fear, and isolation. Those fleeting positive moments […]
The world is slowly dying, but the dead aren’t. Sqürl’s (the musical duo of director Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan) score for Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die provides the perfect foil: meandering, darkened drone against the film’s silly meta-comedy backdrop. […]