Score Sample - Gremlins

In my previous blog about Jerry Goldsmith I mentioned that he created a score for nearly any genre of film you can imagine. So some of you said, what about a Christmas movie, I bet he didn't score one of those. Well, he did. In fact Goldsmith had a great working relationship with director Joe Dante, and provided the score for nearly all his films since they first started working together on Twilight Zone: The Movie. So naturally when Dante finished working on Gremlins he brought in Goldsmith to score it. Dante seemed to bring out some of Goldsmith's humor in his music. For the snazzy theme for the gremlins, Goldsmith took the theme he crafted for the monster on the wing of the plane in Twilight Zone: The Movie and tweaked it a little - making it more mischievous and fun. But you can hear a very clear similarity between them. Makes sense, since the creature on the wing of the plane is gremlin-like in his destruction of machines. Here is the end credit suite from Gremlins, with Goldsmith indulging in his 1980s syths, as well as giving us one hell of a memorable theme.

Listen carefully and you can hear digitized wailing cats being used in counterpoint. A clever nod to a cat loving character in the film.