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<i>Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear</i> (review)

2011; Music Library Association; Volume: 67; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/not.2011.0030

1534-150X

Mark Brill,

Music History and Culture

Reviewed by: Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear Mark Brill Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear. Edited by Neil Lerner. (Routledge Music and Screen Media Series.) New York: Routledge, 2010. [xi, 240 p. ISBN 9780415992022 (hardcover), $95; ISBN 9780415992039 (paperback), 29.95.] Music examples, illustrations, index. This collection of short essays provides a diverse examination of the role music plays in the horror film genre. Noting in the preface that the music of horror films is often more disturbing to viewers than their visual aspects, editor Neil Lerner presents this volume as a necessary study of horror film soundtracks and their effects on the genre. The first three essays do not focus on specific films, but rather examine elements—pipe organs, children, and tritones—which have been part of the horror genre almost since its inception. Julie Brown's essay examines the instrument that has been most associated with horror film, the pipe organ. Why the organ? she asks fittingly, since nineteenth-century horror was often more connected with the violin, the favorite instrument of the devil. Brown effectively traces the evolution of the organ in horror films, pointing to its role in providing music of silent- era films, and identifies its importance and influence on many film traditions. Then, focusing on Carnival of Souls (1962), she provides convincing arguments related to the psychological and sexual implications of the instrument and its relationship with Gothic horror. She delineates connections to, among others, Phantom of the Opera (1929) and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo. One important lacuna, however, is that Brown ignores the almost obvious connection between the organ and the Church. Her reading of Carnival of Souls as a psychosexual film, compelling as it is, tells only part of the story, since much of the film itself can be interpreted from a religious point of view. Its central theme—that of a lost soul of the undead—has unambiguous [End Page 533] religious implications, as do the Christlike mysterious man and the ghostly projections that pervade the film. That these elements are portrayed in connection with the organ—the quintessential church instrument—can only reinforce that connection, and such an analysis would have elucidated the subject matter even further. Never theless, Brown's entry is a valuable if still incomplete analysis of one of classic horror film's most iconic images and sounds. Janet K. Halfyard's essay examines an often overlooked genre, that of the horror comedy. She provides an elucidating summary of the traditional features of horror scores, and contrasts them with those of horror comedies. At the center of her essay lies the question: How does one write a score that will simultaneously allude to both fear and humor? Halfyard's answer is that filmmakers in this genre have focused either on ironic detachment or historical distance. Allusions to things that in the past were frightening, such as devils playing violins, are today considered quirky and amusing. Focusing particularly on the Danny Elfman scores for the films of Tim Burton, Halfyard demonstrates how modern horror comedies have effectively used the tritone, the hitherto intervallic representation of evil, the long-standing diabolus in musica. Tritones can be used without abandoning tonal harmony, disrupting tonality rather than destroying it. Whereas destruction of atonality brings fear, disruption merely provides amusement. In perhaps the best essay in the collection, Stan Link poses the questions: How do we hear children in horror films? What do we hear through them? Link first ably traces the antecedents of the portrayal of children in connection with death and horror, citing Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, and other musical and literary works. He then argues that in films such as Don't Look Now (1973), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Poltergeist (1982), The Omen (1976), The Birds (1963), and The Bad Seed (1956), elements of childhood such as innocence and motherhood are not merely backdrops against which the horror plays out. These films do not merely construct innocence only to tear it down. Rather, the composers have used the elements of childhood as tools for the expression of horror itself—innocence as horror. The presence of lullabies, music boxes, and...