| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Halloween (John Carpenter)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on both the 1985 and 1998 albums if you seek a
comprehensive collection of music from the 1978 horror classic.
Avoid it... if the catchy title theme cannot compensate for extremely stark, simplistic, and repetitive structures in a score that doesn't translate particularly well into a lengthy, standalone listening experience.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Halloween: (John Carpenter) Writer and director
John Carpenter labored for years to capture the same artistic success of
his 1978 surprise horror hit Halloween. Countless sequels and a
slew of substandard imitations resulted from that original classic. It
was a fantastic triumph in both scaring audiences and earning massive
returns, eventually grossing 150 times its meager $300,000 budget. Its
numerous sequels immediately destroyed the mystique of "the shape,"
humanizing him with a name and a backstory; Halloween was
successful because it represented a nameless evil relentlessly stalking
and killing for a purpose unknown. He who eventually was revealed as
Michael Myers is shown brutally killing his sister at the age of six,
and his escape from authorities and return to Haddonfield, Illinois
leads to attacks on a group of three teenage girls in contemporary 1978.
Only the virginal Laurie Strode, famously portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis
when she was still a nerdy youth, escapes the senseless wrath of the
shape, but not before Carpenter throws countless effective scares at
viewers. Often compared to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Carpenter's
masterpiece translates tension into success, avoiding the gore that
would be spawned by the spin-off sequels and franchises. One of the
film's most universally praised production elements is Carpenter's own
music, which was brilliantly counter-intuitive despite being the best
that the director could come up with on his budget. The score is
extremely basic in its structure and rendering, repeating its four major
motifs to such an extent that they became synonymous with impact of the
film. Like John Williams' Jaws just a few years earlier, the
stark theme to Halloween is among the most recognizable
simplistic motifs of the 1970's, enduring through the franchise's two
decade run. The ensemble was simple: a piano, a small string group, and
an array of synthesized effects ranging from strings to agogo and other
ominous, pitch-defying tones. The extremely sparse nature of their
recording contributes significantly to the film's sense of loneliness
and dread, with the piano shattering its stereotype of suburban
comfort.
The title theme introduced immediately on piano is the famous piece from Halloween, existing throughout the film over racing 5/4 rhythms and accompanied by relentless tones on the synths performing the theme for Curtis' character. On album, this theme was augmented with a heavy electronic drum loop, which unfortunately takes away from the eerie atmosphere of the remaining ensemble. The unconventional movement of the rhythm is Carpenter's best choice for the score, providing an unfamiliar sense of the inevitable. Its extremely repetitious use throughout the film heightens the level of frantic worry, because not only does its pace disturb, its consistency matches the resolve of the killer. The secondary theme for Laurie isn't as strong, with a seemingly echoing piano motif yielding to a synth string idea that obviously plays on the nervousness of the character rather than her inherent strengths. On the original 1985 CD album, this theme is very deliberately explored in "Laurie's Theme" and "Laurie Knows." The other two motifs aren't as well known, but they extend the generally menacing tone of the first two. The stalking motif, heard primarily in "The Shape Lurks" and "The Shape Stalks" (not surprisingly... the track titles of that original CD are genuine cue sheet revelations!), offers the piano forcefully moving through a rhythm on a single low key while electrifying synth effects slowly build to a dissonant crescendo on top. It's a difficult motif to appreciate on its own, but it is certainly distinct enough to accomplish its task. More nebulous is the slightly lyrical rhythm and theme for the "Haunted House" concept, an idea with counterpoint that would turn up in Danny Elfman's ghostly works a decade later. Using a more conventional meter, this theme is something of a bridge between the comfort of Laurie's previous existence and the attacker attempting to violate it. Additional material in "Myers' House" and "Michael Kills Judith" can be identified with the 1963 sequences, though this music is among the least memorable of the lot. Overall, however, it's the title theme that defines the score, and listeners can hear it reprised in almost identical forms in "Halloween Theme - Main Title," "Shape Escapes," and "Loomis and Shape's Car." Heard first in the cue "Shape Escapes," Carpenter employs two synthetic accents that extend the fright in the film. First, his use of the low, droning tones that brood in several of the cues enhances the ominous atmosphere. Secondly, he avoids the Bernard Herrmann cliche of screeching string figures by instead using a consistent, shrieking, metallic sound effect to solicit the same response. These tools are inserted as needed for specific synchronization points in the film, not always fitting well with the underlying rhythms. Overall, the Halloween score is an extremely remarkable match for its film, and the title theme's piano rhythm is no doubt very memorable. The score does suffer from numerous flaws, however, when pulled away from the film. Carpenter's work is extremely sparse by necessity, but his simplistic repetitions of the same performances throughout the score, never altering key or tempo, does beg for criticism. Even on the original 34-minute album, the score is extremely tiresome in its inability to adapt any of its ideas into something more than their original identity. The lack of development or maturation for Laurie's theme, for instance, doesn't match the character's ordeal as the film progresses. These are problems for the album experience, though, and shouldn't detract from the effectiveness of Carpenter's work. The 1985 Varèse Sarabande album mentioned throughout this review was long the only available representation of the music from the film. In 1998, to coincide with their release of John Ottman's rejected score for Halloween: H20, Varèse offered an anniversary edition of 51 minutes in length. Unfortunately, while this album did finally provide the title theme without the obnoxious, thumping beat loop, it also sprinkled dialogue and sound effects throughout the tracks. The additional music is not the attraction; instead, the "experience" of the film itself on CD was the target. Despite impressively improved sound quality in the new stereo mix on the 1998 album (applying to both music and dialogue), fans of the score are likely best served by the original release. Composers Alan Howarth and John Ottman eventually provided notable variations on Carpenter's main themes, with Ottman translating it in 1998 into a powerfully orchestral experience that was ultimately rejected from the final film. As the late Donald Pleasance would have said, "The Evil Has Gone!" Carpenter's original mastery, however, endures.
TRACK LISTINGS:
1985 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 33:49
1998 Varèse Album: Total Time: 51:46
NOTES & QUOTES:
Neither insert includes extra information about the score or film.
Copyright ©
2000-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Halloween are Copyright © 1985, 1998, Varèse Sarabande (Original), Varèse Sarabande (20th Anniversary) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 1/12/00 and last updated 7/28/08. |
