John Carpenter Announces Release Date of new Halloween OST

It’s hard not to get goosebumps, just running the iconic theme to 1978’s Halloween through your mind. Chillingly minimalistic and yet disturbing evocative, director-composer John Carpenter did more with a few piano notes than any other horror film has been able to do since. Is it any wonder we recently felt compelled to award the original Halloween the title of “greatest slasher ever made” in our ranking of the top 50 slasher movies? There’s just no beating it for sheer atmosphere, and Carpenter’s score is a huge part of the reason why—not just the iconic opening theme, but from start to finish, as the silent Shape of Michael Myers stalks his victims.

We can hardly contain our excitement, then, for the following news: The Carpenter-scored OST for the new, upcoming Halloween sequel will officially be arriving on Oct. 19 from Sacred Bones, on the same day that David Gordon Green’s new film is released in theaters. It will be the first film in the series since Halloween 3 to have Carpenter involved in any way, and he composed it alongside his collaborators from three recent solo albums, Cody Carpenter (his son) and Daniel Davies. The OST is described as such:

The new soundtrack pays homage to the classic Halloween score that Carpenter composed and recorded in 1978, when he forever changed the course of horror cinema and synthesizer music with his low-budget masterpiece. Several new versions of the iconic main theme serve as the pulse of Green’s film, its familiar 5/4 refrain stabbing through the soundtrack like the Shape’s knife. The rest of the soundtrack is equally enthralling, incorporating everything from atmospheric synth whooshes to eerie piano-driven pieces to skittering electronic percussion. While the new score was made with a few more resources than Carpenter’s famously shoestring original, its musical spirit was preserved: “We wanted to honor the original Halloween soundtrack in terms of the sounds we used,” Davies explained. “We used a lot of the Dave Smith OB-6, bowed guitar, Roland Juno, Korg, Roli, Moog, Roland System 1, Roland System 8, different guitar pedals, mellotron, and piano.”

Consider us excited as hell, especially considering how interesting some of Carpenter’s recent work on his Lost Themes albums have been. Even more exciting is the extra inspiration that Carpenter is working with this time around, being reunited with original “final girl” Laurie Strode, aka Jamie Lee Curtis, and composing an OST set to the pace of the film, as he did for the likes of The Fog, Escape From New York and Big Trouble in Little China. Carpenter says “it was great” in the OST’s press release, going on to say the following: “It was transforming. It was not a movie I directed, so I had a lot of freedom in creating the score and getting into the director’s head. I was proud to serve David Gordon Green’s vision.”

You can get a very, very short preview of the OST below, and it’s already available for pre-order here. Also check out the first trailer for the simply named Halloween below.