Halloween OST – John Carpenter (1978) – Soundtrack Review

Album: Halloween: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Artist: John Carpenter

Release Date: August 1979

John Carpenter is such a badass. Halloween has one of the most iconic scores ever and it was composed AND recorded in only three days on a shoestring budget. They were able to achieve by composing to a picture that wasn’t locked yet – and when I said “wasn’t locked yet” I mean they had a half-finished picture. Because of these constraints, the music acts like more of a suite than a soundtrack. Regardless of the method or the madness, this is one of the most recognizable scores in film history. It leans heavily on minimal electronics and a small ensemble of musicians rather than a full orchestra. John handled the keyboards and main melodic material while his partner in crime, Dan Wyman, programmed and supported the synths. Besides the main melody riff, Carpenter’s piano riffs in this film sit perfectly at the intersection of horror and minimalism.

Wendy Carlos and Tangerine Dream surely paved the way, but Carpenter cemented that electronic scores like this weren’t just for artsy or experimental films. You see the blood splatter of Carpenter’s DNA all over film scores these days. You can trace the bloodline straight through Brad Fiedel’s The Terminator, Disasterpeace’s It Follows and dozens of other contemporary electronic producers who treat minimal rhythm like another character in a film. Halloween’s soundtrack is iconic because it’s so foundational to the film itself – the film wouldn’t work nearly as well without it. The repetition, the space between notes, the cold precision of analog tone, it all transformed that small independent horror film into a cultural phenomenon.

Every time that five-count theme starts, civilization trembles just a little, and the ghosts of analog machines wake up again. Happy Halloween!