Halloween (2018)
“The Sound of Fear” Featurette
There are only a select number of movies that can be identified by merely listening to their respective themes. Films like Jaws and Jurassic Park, for example, have instrumentals that have become rather synonymous with the title. Upon its release in 1978, the Halloween theme instantly became a recognizable tune to the average moviegoer. To this day, the music still remains a piece unequaled in the horror genre. With something so famous, it only made sense that Halloween (2018) would draw a massive amount of inspiration from it.
If you’re looking to learn how one of the most iconic themes in cinema history came to be, be sure to watch the extra, “The Sound of Fear,” in the “Featurettes” section of our Halloween (2018) behind-the-scenes content.
In this exclusive, John Carpenter, the director of the original Halloween, reveals how he came up with the famed score. According to Carpenter himself, “The most important thing about setting the mood in a horror movie is to write scary music.” Carpenter was able to do just that by remembering the piano lessons he learned from his father. He reveals that when he was practicing, he created the riff that would eventually serve as the foundation for the Halloween main theme.
After almost forty years, that original Halloween score went on to serve as the basis for the new Halloween (2018) track. In 1978, John Carpenter worked alone to produce the very first Halloween theme. In 2018, however, three people collaborated to make the composition sound even scarier than it was before. Cody Carpenter, Halloween (2018)’s composer and son of John Carpenter, says that his score “pays homage to the original and keeps the feel.”
As you’ll find out in this featurette, John Carpenter only used a piano and some synthesizers to create the iconic Halloween score. For Halloween (2018), Carpenter and his team experimented with different musical techniques to achieve new and creepy sounds.
The most notable was the one that played over the scene when Allyson Nelson (played by Andi Matichak) saw Michael Myers for the first time in the movie. While watching this behind-the-scenes look, you’ll see that the sound was created by running a violin bow across the cords of an electric guitar. The three Halloween (2018) composers continuously tried out different ideas to make the original theme their own, and they certainly achieved that challenging feat.
As you’re watching the movie, you can hear these new riffs on the iconic track. All the additions to the score really do set the mood for the movie, just as John Carpenter intended it would all the way back in 1978. You feel the fear that the characters are experiencing and you sense the impending doom that might potentially befall them. Just like how you can’t have a Halloween movie without Michael Myers, you surely can’t have a Halloween movie without this famous track playing. If you don’t, it would kill the mood entirely.
It'll be music to your ears to hear that you can watch all the behind-the-scenes content from Halloween (2018) when you buy the movie on 4k Ultra HD, DVD, Digital, or Blu-rayTM*.
*Bonus features are only available at select digital retailers. Check the retailer for details.
Like this article? Read more about the making of Halloween (2018) here: