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Album Review: 'Halloween' by John Carpenter
Through the many returns, retroactive continuities (retcons) and sequels in the Halloween movie franchise, John Carpenter’s name remains the series’ gold standard.
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Album review: ‘Halloween’ by John Carpenter (-/-)
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ou can’t keep greatness down. Or perhaps, you can’t keep glorious “evil” down. Through the many returns, retroactive continuities (retcons) and sequels in the Halloween movie franchise, John Carpenter’s name remains the series’ gold standard.
Sure, Carpenter “only” directed the renowned first entry in the series in 1978, cowrote the second one (Halloween II in 1981), as well as the less-celebrated (but now rather fondly looked upon) third one, Season of the Witch — the only one not to feature the series’ masked killer Michael Myers aka The Shape — but his name remains glued to the franchise’s success and its influence over horror and thriller films ever since. That the pacing and presentation of the first Halloween has been regurgitated (at various levels of quality) by other directors ever since cannot be overstated.
But it isn’t only Carpenter’s direction that has garnered his name that intrinsic connection with the Halloween series; it is also the music he created for the first, second and third films.
Read also: 'Halloween': A not-so-terrifying yet still entertaining sequel
And now, Carpenter has returned to once again soundtrack a Halloween film, this time for the just-released latest entry titled simply and confusingly Halloween (this would be the third film in the franchise to hold that minimalist title), which acts as a direct sequel to the first entry , ret-conning everything that came after. Seriously, no other series has suffered as much ret-conning as Halloween has.
This new soundtrack is released by independent New York label Sacred Bones, which in the past has also released two solo Carpenter albums, called Lost Themes I and II, and featuring some compelling compositions.
A synthesizer-driven soundtrack of retro-futurist greatness, Carpenter’s soundtrack to Halloween is likely most known for “Halloween Theme”, the piano-driven theme, played at a discomforting 5/4 beat that is eerie in its simplicity, announcing the arrival of the series’ seemingly immortal boogeyman.
Loaded with retro-futurist synthesizer sounds, the influence of Carpenter’s soundtrack goes beyond the cinephile universe, however. Its very-off-its-time mood-setting and spacey-horror soundscapes now influence modern music in indirect ways, no doubt due to the revival of 1980s-sounding music in the past decade. The way Carpenter juxtaposes and mixes that sense of foreboding with fluid spaced-out melodies has in particular influenced experimental-electronic underground musicians in the West whose works lean less on obvious electronica flourishes and more toward textures.
The basic sound to the new the soundtrack remains the same. This time Carpenter partners with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, who had also worked with him on the Lost Themes records. Davies seemingly shares the same kind of sense of sounds and rhythmic nuances as Carpenter, while Cody serves up a little more traditional approach through classic rock flourishes.
The difference between the late 1970s, 1980s Carpenter sound with its current equivalent is in the intensity of its texture. Often breaking into industrial territory, the songs’ fluctuating dynamics and textures are imbued with beats that jump between solemn and dramatic. Carpenter even infuses some explicitly punchy rhythmic moments that are almost danceable in an alarming sort of way.
The synths and overall sounds are more defined, more “electronic” dare I say, pulsating with intensity especially in moments that capture the film’s scarier moments. They evoke the brittle quality of The Shape’s kills, and definitely feel terrifying even without their visual counterpart.
Perhaps the closest it comes to textural delivery is in the duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (from industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails), who have served up some of the most enticing soundtracks of the past decade. Of course, something like Halloween necessitates more extroverted deliveries to punctuate every scene, but the static and droning buzzes and hisses found here pay some debt to them.
In lots of ways, Carpenter is paying homage to his own past creation. He embraces all of the past nuances and enhances them in more obvious ways. The soundtrack remains atmospheric and tension-filled, an intriguing listen and tribute to one of the best thrillers to ever grace the cinema.
