According to IMDB, John Carpenter has 40 Composer credits. These include Big Trouble in Little China, Assault on Precinct 13, Village of the Damned, Ghosts of Mars, and his own film, Halloween. He also has 25 Music Department Credits which include the TV series, Zoo, and several video shorts, The Sassy One with Nancy Loomis, Alice at the Apocalypse: An Interview With Alice Cooper, Ghosts of Mars, and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.
Carpenter attended the University of Kentucky in Bowling Green, Kentucky. His father served as chair of the music department there. After leaving University of Southern California‘s School of Cinematic Arts, he collaborated with John Longenecker, a producer, and served as a composer for the film, The Resurrection of Billy Bronco. The film would win an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He would go on to write music for the 1974 film, Dark Star. These earlier jobs were done out of necessity since each film lacked the budget for a proper composer and orchestra to perform the score.
In 1978, Carpenter played with a band called, The Coupe De Villes. He was playing with this band when he wrote the score for Halloween. As horror movie lore has it, it took only three days for Carpenter to compose the theme. When asked about creating the obvious tension in the film’s score, Carpenter said “I just wanted to write something that I thought was effective.” This seems to be the case with all of the scores Carpenter writes, both for himself and for others.
One of his band members in The Coupe De Villes was Nick Castle. Fans of the film should know the name, even if they don’t the face.
Fans of the composer, John Carpenter, understand how he uses music to enhance the film. There were times when silence served just as well as filling every scene with music. This indicates a very real and acute understanding of timing within the horror genre. There is also an elegant simplicity with Carpenter’s music which lends itself to his directing style.
Even though Carpenter has turned away from the director’s chair, he still scored Halloween Kills, the film by David Gordon Green. In an interview with KUSC (Classical California), Carpenter said Green gave him a great deal of personal freedom and that his work was a “real great collaboration.” After taking notes on what Green wanted, Carpenter was able to deliver what the director wanted. “I’m just the composer and the helper,” Carpenter states.
Since leaving the world of directing, Carpenter has leaned into his music career. He has two albums in which he collaborates with his son, Cody, and his godson, Daniel. They have produced three albums with new instruments and sounds incorporated into all of them. New technology has given Carpenter the ability to update older theme music and produce new work. “We used modern sounds on the old stuff,” Carpenter told KUSC. The albums entitled Lost Themes and Anthology, are a new way to experience older John Carpenter music.
Carpenter’s music is available on CD and online streaming.
