The 20 Greatest Original Horror Scores

Goblin — “Suspiria” (1977)
Italian prog-rockers Goblin were the band for horror fans in the 1970s, their diverse and strangely danceable work accompanying a number of classics, including George Romero’s “Dawn Of The Dead.” But the band’s best-known work came in collaboration with giallo king Dario Argento, and while we love their droney, synth-tastic “Tenebrae” work (sampled by French electro titans Justice for their track “Phantom”), their finest hour is unquestionably via Argento’s best film “Suspiria,” about an American ballerina (Jessica Harper) tormented by a witch’s coven. Virtually unique among the band’s discography, let alone horror scores in general, the music sees Claudio Simonetti & co. take advantage of ethnic instruments like the tabla and bouzouki, almost subliminally eerie voices and a shitload of chimes along with their trademark synths. It’s completely freaky and enormously influential (one suspects that “Berberian Sound Studio” was influenced as much by Goblin’s work here as by Argento in general).

Howard Shore — “Videodrome” (1983)
“Subversive and perverse and unsettling without being obvious” is how David Cronenberg describes Shore’s score for his seminal “Videodrome” on the Criterion Collection commentary, and there’s no real arguing as such. Having scored all Cronenberg’s films bar “The Dead Zone,” Shore has subsequently won three Oscars (all for ‘Lord of the Rings‘ movies) and is probably now more known for immense, orchestral scores for Middle Earth or Martin Scorsese. But in his third time out as a film composer, he created an experimental classic in the horror genre in which the musical motifs mirror the devolution of the protagonist by starting orchestrally but being gradually subsumed by electronica. Of course, one would expect from Cronenberg that the music would work on this intellectual level, but Shore’s staticky, scratchy, scuzzy snatches and creeping drones counterpoint the warmth of the more traditional instrumentation on a visceral level as well, contributing to the sense, also embodied by Lynch‘s “Eraserhead,” of the score as more soundscape than standard cues and cuts.

Riz Ortolani — “Cannibal Holocaust” (1980)
You know that bit in “This is Spinal Tap” where Nigel Tufnel plays a romantic new piano composition, and when asked what it’s called, says “Lick My Love Pump?” You can re-enact the cinema soundtrack version of that gag IRL by playing Riz Ortolani’s main theme here to a neophyte —it’s a lush, lyrical, borderline syrupy sweetheart of a tune, all flute trills and pretty melodies that only a totally deranged mind could ever think appropriate for Ruggero Deodato‘s notoriously graphic Mondo-style exploitation horror. But then again, it’s hard to imagine what could be appropriate for the scenes of animal cruelty, gang rape and ritualistic murder that comprise the film’s most sensationalist moments, and it’s a problem Ortolani tackles by throwing everything in the mix —picnicky tunes, atonal disco beats and a strings-heavy classical-esque score. It’s not exactly holistic, but even taken individually the tracks are pretty great, occasionally lending even this grotty endeavor a layer of sophistication.

Ennio Morricone —”The Thing” (1982)
We’ve already discussed John Carpenter’s own compositions, but he also could inspire specialist collaborators to distinctly Carpenter-ian heights (or bassy, electro depths).
Here the incomparable, Oscar-winning Morricone created one of his most atypical scores: a barely-there background drone punctuated by a spartan electronic two-note motif lends a deeply uneasy edge to the film by constantly seeming to be on the verge of a crescendo that never quite comes. In 2011, Carpenter’s frequent musical collaborator Alan Howarth re-recorded Morricone’s compositions, occasionally bringing different elements to the fore and changing the instrumentation slightly. Both versions of the soundtrack are pretty stellar, maybe more Carpenter than Carpenter, with Howarth saying later that it had taken Morricone a few passes and a playing of the soundtrack to “Escape from New York” before he came up with a score the director accepted.

Bernard Herrmann — “Psycho” (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock‘s hall-of-fame “Psycho” broke a lot of ground in 1960, including with respect to horror scores. But as so often, it was limitation that released creativity: maestro Herrmann had to settle for a strings-only orchestra thanks to the picture’s low budget. Herrmann’s music is an incalculably large part of that unforgettable shower scene, but what makes it more remarkable is that Hitchcock’s original intention was to have no musical accompaniment therein —it was on the composer’s insistence that the director decided to use the iconically piercing clash of violins and violas. Cut to Herrmann’s name appearing right before Hitchcock’s in Saul Bass‘ opening credits. While Herrmann’s “Vertigo” score is another stunner, it’s “Psycho” that has influenced the horror music landscape most (Harry Manfredini’s “Friday the 13th” and Richard Band‘s “Re-Animator” theme come most readily to mind), remaining to this day a masterclass in sustained suspense with a most unusual addition: a real payoff.