music in the horror film

Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear (review)Charles Leinberger

Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Volume 5, Issue 1, Spring 2011,pp. 101-105 (Article)

Published by Liverpool University PressDOI: 10.1353/msm.2011.0004

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The frequency with which books on film music are being published hasbeen increasing dramatically in the last decade. Not only do readers havea wide selection of new books from which to choose, but the parametersof this interdisciplinary field are gradually becoming more clearlydefined. Some recent texts are comprehensive chronologies of film musicduring the sound era, such as James Wierzbickis insightful Film Music: AHistory. Others take a less chronological and more methodologicalapproach, such as James Buhler, David Neumeyer and Rob Deemersversatile Hearing the Movies: Music and Sound in Film History. Still others,such as Scarecrow Presss diverse series of Film Score Guides, are each amonograph that deals with one particular composer and one particularfilm. Routledges new Music and Screen Media Series is original in that eachvolume of the series is designed as a collection of essays on a particulargenre of visual media, including both film and television. According tothe Series Foreword by Neil Lerner, this series offers collections oforiginal essays written for an interdisciplinary audience of students andscholars of music, film and media studies in general, and interdiscipli-nary humanists who give strong attention to music (vii). Music in theHorror Film: Listening to Fear, the first entry in the series, accomplishes thisgoal by offering a range of approaches that will appeal to a diverseaudience. Undergraduate and postgraduate students of music and mediastudies will find this to be an enjoyable read; and teachers of musictheory, music literature and media studies will find this volume to beworth their time and suitable for adoption in a course on film musicology.According to Routledges website, an upcoming volume in this series,edited by James Deaville (a contributor to the present anthology), willfocus on music for television, and yet another, edited by KathrynKalinak, will be dedicated to music in the western.

For readers who are familiar with film musicology, but who might besomewhat unfamiliar with this particular genre, this volume serves as awell-conceived introduction that only occasionally leaves the reader over-whelmed with specific jargon. Each author offers a unique perspective on

MSMI 5:1 Spring 11 101

Neil Lerner (ed.)Music in the Horror Film: Listening to FearNew York: Routledge, 2010, 240pp.

review by Charles Leinberger

the genre, some more musicological than others, but the order of essaysand the transition from one essay to the next is always coherent.

Many of the essays in Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear dealmore with how pre-existing music is used in horror film, as opposed tohow a composer composes new music for a film. As a result, there is lessemphasis of the compositional process. It would have been useful ifLerner had articulated whether this was by design, as I found it to be anoticeable, if not distracting, trend throughout the volume.

Although not well acquainted with all the films discussed, I had littletrouble following the authors discourse on these unfamiliar films. If thereader is a musician, he or she will most likely find the essays byHalfyard, Code and Whitesell to be very enjoyable to read withoutencountering very many unfamiliar terms. Film scholars who do nothave a strong musical background might likewise enjoy the contributionsby Link, Tompkins and Buhler.

As described in the volumes Preface,

the first three chapters take a more thematic approach (e.g. the presence oforgans, tritones, and childrens music) while the remaining nine delve intoa particular film or group of films with an eye and ear! towards findingnew understandings of these filmic texts through a careful reflection uponthe music.

(x)

This organisation seems to work well. Not being an expert on horrorfilm, I found that after the first three essays those by Brown, Halfyardand Link I was well prepared for a detailed discussion of specific filmsand some key subgenres, such as slasher films and vampire films.

Julie Browns Carnival of Souls and the Organs of Horror was apleasant read, although lacking musical examples. The illustrations,nevertheless, were plentiful. The numerous still photographs fromCarnival of Souls were well chosen and most useful, but I was a little disap-pointed in that the essay dealt more with the organ as an instrument andits visual images in horror film, rather than organ music as composed forhorror film. In other words, it seemed as if Brown was advancing atheory that the organ was a visual signifier as much as an auditory one.The second essay, Janet Halfyards Mischief Afoot: SupernaturalHorror-comedies and the Diabolus in Musica, was an excellent balance offilm scholarship and musicology, as is her earlier work on DannyElfmans music for Batman. Her historical information on the use of thetritone, or lack thereof, in medieval music is credible, as is her ability torelate the tritone as a signifier of things unholy to modern film music. Inthe third essay, Stan Links The Monster and the Music Box: Children

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Neil Lerner, Music in the Horror Film review by Charles Leinberger

and the Soundtrack of Horror, the pendulum swings back the other way.Like Browns essay, there are no musical examples. The essay is lessconcerned with compositional techniques, and more with the role thatmusic plays in creating that part of the films soundtrack that gives aparticular film its desired child-like quality. His discourse on theinnocence and horror dichotomy is most informative.

As mentioned earlier, the following nine essays each deal with a specificfilm Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for example or group of films, such asvarious Dracula films and others in the vampire subgenre. The first ofthese nine essays is by the volumes editor, Lerner. His The Strange Caseof Rouben Mamoulians Sound Stew: The Uncanny Soundtrack in Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) brings the reader back to a discussion on moreintramusical elements. The amount of detail included in the eventssurrounding the creation of the sound stew is impressive.

Ross J. Fenimores Voices that Lie Within: The Heard and Unheardin Psycho is a thought-provoking examination of the assumptions that theviewer makes concerning the unseen source of voices heard in the filmtheatre, and how, if at all, those voices are heard by characters in thefictional world created by the films narrative. The musical examples area welcome addition, but there is little discussion that relates directly tothose examples.

Claire Sisco Kings Ramblin Men and Piano Men: Crises of Music andMasculinity in The Exorcist begins as a musicological essay, describing theevents leading up to the creation of the score as it is heard in the film,with informative details surrounding the composition and eventualrejection of the Lalo Schifrin score. This essay discusses quite clearly howmusic is used in this film, as opposed to how music was composed for thisfilm, and then turns to matters of masculinity and sexuality, which,although relevant to the film on several levels, might be read as being lessrelevant to the music heard in the film.

David J. Codes Rehearing The Shining: Musical Undercurrents in theOverlook Hotel, like the preceding King essay, is a discussion of howpre-composed music is used in a film. This essay includes very impressivereproductions of music of Penderecki, including excerpts from TheAwakening of Jacob (1975) and Polymorphia (1963) that are both used in TheShining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980). Codes attention to musicological detailis impressive; his vocabulary in describing the relationships betweensound and image is formidable.

K.J. Donnellys Hearing Deep Seated Fears: John Carpenters The Fog(1980) is unlike any other publication I have read on film music.Avoiding the normal approach of discussing how a composers processinteracts with the visual image, Donnelly spends much time discussing



sound, and is quite expert at describing technical and acoustic issuesrelated to the listeners perception of the film soundtrack. His essay isenjoyable and informative, especially the discussion concerning thehistorical significance of early analogue synthesizers.

What bothered me most about James Deavilles The Beauty ofHorror: Kilar, Coppola, and Dracula was his repeated practice ofquoting a source and then pointing out how that source failed to makeanother observation (quoting Brown on p. 188, Maltalbano on p. 190,Worland on p. 190 and Elsaesser on p. 197). Often, these observationsthat Deaville claims have been overlooked by others actually contributelittle to his argument. Yet when it comes to the musical examples in hisessay, he is the one who presents a predicament for the reader. Why isthe bottom staff of Figure 11.1, labelled Piano, notated in theperplexing French violin clef (G clef on the first line) and not in trebleclef (G clef on the second line)? This is probably a mistake in the tran-scription of the example, not subsequently caught by the proofreader.This oversight detracts from his argument, which is unfortunate, espe-cially considering his rather pretentious criticism of the arguments madeby others. Otherwise, Deavilles essay is very insightful.

Lloyd Whitesells Quieting the Ghosts in The Sixth Sense and The Otherswas a pleasure to read, with useful musical examples neatly dovetailedinto the text. As in the essay by Halfyard, some of the musical examplesappear to be reproduced in slightly different sizes from others, which tomy eye, makes some stand out as possible formatting errors. Although Ihave not seen the two films he discusses, he leads the reader from onepoint to the next in a way that is extremely easy to follow.

I have chosen to discuss the subsequent two essays together, as Ibelieve they address a reader much more as film scholar than musicolo-gist. Joe Tompkinss Pop Goes the Horror Score: Left Alone in The LastHouse on the Left, like the essays by Brown and Link, contains no musicalexemplification, and, although very well written, dedicates the leastamount of space to the discussion of music of all the essays in theanthology. Although I was surprised that James Buhlers Music and theAdult Ideal in A Nightmare on Elm Street did not mention music in anydetail until four-and-a-half pages into the essay, I enjoyed his depictionof the slasher subgenre and, in particular, the concepts of the final girland the adult ideal. His analysis of the slasher subgenre and of theposition of Nightmare on Elm Street in that particular subgenre is informa-tive and extremely well thought-out.

In general, this attractive volume is a well-balanced blend of film schol-arship and musicology, and represents a welcome step forward in thesynthesis of the two comparable disciplines. If subsequent volumes in this

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new series from Routledge are as practical, insightful and informative asMusic in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear, then this series should draw theinterest of readers from both areas. This volume could easily be adoptedfor an undergraduate course on horror film for students majoring in filmstudies or music, or possibly a graduate class that includes a horror filmcomponent, along with other genres.



music in the horror film

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