Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Movie Music Musings – Horrifying John Williams

Ask film music fans about horror film scores and you’ll hear a few composer names pop up almost immediately. Bernard Herrmann and his work with Hitchcock will leap to mind. Jerry Goldsmith crafted some amazing work for The Omen and Poltergeist. Christopher Young is the current master of horror music from the creepy music for The Grudge and the bombastic thrills of Drag Me to Hell. Even Hans Zimmer has taken on the genre with some really intense music for the Hollywood version of The Ring.

But one name you don’t hear too often related to horror scores is the maestro himself, John Williams. This has more to do with the type of films that Williams gets attached to and isn’t a commentary on his skills. Williams has provided some excellent scores to thrillers and individual cues in the Harry Potter films and Jurassic Park have some excellent moments of tension and fear. But these days, Williams works primarily in dramas and fantasies.

You have to journey back in his career, right when it was really taking off, to hear some of his most interesting horror music. The 1970s were fruitful time for a more experimental side to Williams work. He hadn’t been locked quite into the full Golden Age mode he achieved with Star Wars and Superman. But you can hear hints of those scores in some of this work. Instead, this is a Williams fresh from The Towering Inferno and the Poseidon Adventure.


1975 kicked it off with one of the most famous monster movies of the decade: Jaws. The movie isn’t wall-to-wall horror, in fact Williams provides the film with a wonderful nautical heroic theme for Chief Brody and his band. But everyone remembers the shark motif, something so simple and primal that it actually builds on images and makes them even more impressive. This motif gets quite a workout in the film, sneaking in and out of the music and building to terrifying levels. This rerecording for the Boston Pops conducted by Williams himself is a treat. Love how the audience chuckles as soon as they recognize it.


In 1977 Williams worked on Close Encounters of a Third Kind. Again his music played a big role in the finale of the film, with his communication theme become instantly memorable. But in the first half of the film, Williams scored the movie like it is a horror film. One of the most terrifying scenes in the movie, is the abduction of young Barry. Williams pulls out all the stops raising the tension to amazingly horrifying levels and making a wonderfully discordant and disturbing track. For real fun, play this back to back with Jerry Goldsmith’s Twisted Abduction track from Poltergeist for a nasty one-two punch.


The next year saw Williams score a sequel to Jaws but more interesting is his work on the Brian Depalma thriller The Fury. Williams creates a lovely main theme that starts off so quietly and then build and builds in power as it carries along. The end credits version is really something else. What is great about this whole score is that Williams takes lots of inspiration from Bernard Herrmann, almost giving The Fury a Hitchcockian feel when it comes the music. For my money this is easily one of Williams best scores of the decade. And yeah this decade includes some of his most impressive work.



In 1979 Williams got to write music for one of the most famous of all horror icons: Dracula. With Frank Langella as the bloodsucker and Lawrence Olivier as Van Helsing, well this was something else. The score has a gothic romantic sweep to it, but remains pure John Williams. In fact, you can hear ideas in this score that would be fleshed out further in The Empire Strikes Back during the Cloud City sequences. Sadly this score has never gotten a good release. The archival sound quality is pretty bad. Film score fans are hoping for some good quality recordings to be found, or to have a full rerecording supervised by the Maestro at some point in the future. That said, it is clear that Williams has the chops to craft excellent horror scores, you just have to know where to look.

6 comments:

  1. Yeah I ran across that Dracula film score the other day while watching some vids on vinyl collecting on an episode of Tales from the Garage. The guy was talking about how Halloween was his favorite time of year, and horror music he enjoyed during the season. I was surprised it was by Williams. https://youtu.be/4b132m_dTBE

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    1. This one comes a bit of a surprise to most folks. I only ran into it because of Jon Broxton over at Movie Music UK was showing me his collection of hard to find CDs and there is was. It is distinctly John Williams, but we don't hear him in horror mode all that often, so it is a bit of a treat to listen to.

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  2. The '79 Dracula is probably the most overlooked of the mainstream studio bunch -- no fault of the score. The '77 Broadway play (a revival of the 1924 play) also starred Langella and was a success, but transitioning from theater to screen always has had mixed results critically and commercially. Williams' scores were effective mood-setters in the others, too.

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    1. Yeah I remember when my dad first opened his video store back in 1980, we had a huge poster for this version of "Dracula" in the store window. It must have been one of the early releases. I remember thinking that Langella looked real creepy to my very young eyes.

      I saw the last fifteen minutes or so of the film on TCM one evening, what I saw looked intriguing, but I admit I was there more of the Williams soundtrack (to see if it sounded any better in film than on the archival recording... it didn't). I really should give it a shot. Sounds like it could be an interesting retelling.

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  3. Nice look at the under appreciated side of a composer that is everything but under appreciated. The Fury is a personal favorite of mine as well, I love the mix of Williams-isms and Herrmann-isms. There are certain moments that I forget I'm not listening to a Herrmann score!

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    1. Thanks Bennett! Most Williams fans don't seem to talk about Williams techniques or style when it comes to horror/suspense music. He does it really well. That said, being a Goldsmith fan, I think Jerry did it a little bit better. :)

      I bought the expanded version of "The Fury" on a whim. I listened to the title track, thought it sounded good, and then said, "Ah hell, it's 70s Williams, I'll probably liked it". And yeah, it became one of my favorite scores from him in that era. That mix of Williams and Herrmann just hits a sweet spot. Great stuff.

      It is also one of the few scores where I think the album suites are actually a better listening experience than the "in film" version. Williams really gets this wonderful flow in that album version. I do miss some of the theremin use in the "in film" version, and I love the horrifying ruckus he generates in "Lifting Susan" but all in all, that album version is the way to go.

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