For the month of October, we are launching a special daily feature called Haunted Halloween Harmony. For each day of the month, we will be spotlighting at least one horror or scary movie soundtrack to help usher in the Halloween season. As we move forward in the month keep an eye out for special features and special guests to make the experience even spookier!
Let’s kick things off with the Trick ‘r Treat soundtrack by Douglas Pipes, which was recently released by La-La Land Records. The DVD is scheduled to be in stores on October 6th!
Right from the “Main Titles,” the listener gets an immediate taste of Bernard Herrmann, Graeme Revell, and Jerry Goldsmith. Although a relative newcomer to the film scoring community, Douglas Pipes is fearless in showing us the colors of his palette.
As Trick ‘r Treat is a genre film branching off the good ol’ spookfest anthology movies like Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside, and Trilogy of Terror, Pipes knows that his music must complement the sometimes conflicting auras that comprise the sinister, the malevolent, and the playful. So it is no surprise that the film’s music is also peppered with slight Danny Elfman-isms – deviant twisting of nursery rhymes (most prominently “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!”), frolicking string arrangements, and gothic nuances.
Pipes weaves in and out of Goldsmith-esque tension (Alien, Poltergeist, and Gremlins often come to mind) throughout the score, and while one would think that the man is the ultimate rip-off artist, he is actually masterfully riffing on the genre itself. Trick ‘r Treat is a film to be taken with a grain of salt (and a heaving bag of popcorn); it is not a heavy, psychological thriller or a shameless gorefest.
It would seem that director Michael Dougherty designed the film to bring a bit of fun back into the horror film world. Horror movies of late have honestly become a little too full of themselves and filmmakers have unfortunately lost sight of the simple appeals of the genre. So it is great to see people like Dougherty out there trying to reel the intensity in a little bit.
Extra kudos to Pipes, who, in addition to creating a score worthy of a fantastic Halloween party, balances the conventions of horror with creepy, childlike mischievousness.
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