The music of 'Poltergeist': Orchestras and music boxes

You may or may not know that there is a new Poltergeist film out today, a bit overshadowed by Brad Bird's new film Tomorrowland. This new version stars Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt; it's directed by Gil Kenan, who gained much praise for his animated film Monster House in 2006 and then disappeared for a while after his 2008 follow-up, City of Ember, didn't do so well.

Remaking Poltergeist is one of those decisions that wasn't really asked for, but with a solid cast, and Sam Raimi supporting Gil Kenan, it could prove to be a standout amidst the summer's crowd of remakes. As Kenan told Variety, "There's a subtheme in the film: the way that electricity permeates our lives, and that's part of the way the haunting is able to express itself."

It provides an opportunity to look at a short but significant musical lineage with an influence that's audible in any scary movie of the last three decades.

Poltergeist (1982)

Famed composer Jerry Goldsmith scored the first Poltergeist in 1982. Credited with over 250 movies, it's difficult to overstate his importance to film scoring. All the qualities that make a great Goldsmith score are present, with an emphasis on strings and wind instruments; music boxes are also employed to suggest the idea of a childhood tainted by external forces. Produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg though directed by Tobe Hooper, the film includes echoes of John Williams's sensibility from his 1970s period, but not overly so: just enough to suggest that artistic lineage.

This is not the traditional film score for scary movies we hear today. Goldsmith's talent lies in the pendulum swing between hard-edged drama and a lighter, theme-driven compositional style that was customary for that era in cinema.

Curiously, the score starts with "The Star-Spangled Banner," which is a not-so-subtle way to initiate the underlying tension in a film about a comfortable suburban life that's built on the graves of others. The fabric of this score's construction permeate every scary movie we have seen since, and the film's gained a reputation as one of the scariest films of all time.

Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Not many people talk about Poltergeist II (let alone Poltergeist III, but we'll get to that). However, Goldsmith returned to do the second film's score. It's a recognizably different work, with an ambient electronica vibe that contrasts with the classical sensibility of the first film. In many ways the orchestrations sound a lot like Mark Snow's work on The X-Files, with light bells and wind instruments drawn into a synthesized style.

Goldsmith does not omit his customary brass section, and his elegance is never lost. It's just somewhat muted, one step removed from the grandeur we often associate with his work. He still utilizes the core theme with a music-box sensibility, but it's wrapped around menace and atmospherics that continually push away the first film's sound in a shift towards something less of childish wonder and more towards lasting trauma.

Poltergeist III (1988)

Scoring duties for the third Poltergeist film fell to Joe Renzetti: a Philadelphia composer, not very well-known, whose most-remembered film might be Child's Play (1988). Without the quality of Goldsmith, everything falls flat. While Renzetti tries to pull in many of the ideas Goldsmith established in the first film, he is not Jerry Goldsmith and the artistry lapses to late-80s pop sensibilities that are honestly difficult highlight with distinction. Like the film, there's not a lot to embrace.

Poltergeist (2015)

"You have to approach it with as much of a blank slate as possible."

This year we get a remake, which very much captures the spirit of the age: taking old properties and adding new life in hopes of renewal as a franchise. Marc Streitenfeld picks up the reins this time around and produces his best score since Prometheus (2012), which is significant since his approach here is very reminiscent to that haunted house in space.

(It's also apt because Prometheus was a sequel to Alien, and guess who wrote the music for the first Alien movie in 1979? That's right: Jerry Goldsmith.)

The composer told Variety that Poltergeist "was one of those moments when I realized how important music and sound is. I was at my neighbor's house, hiding behind a staircase, switching the TV to silent so that I could actually get through it, it was so scary." He latched onto the theme of electricity, recording weird static interferences from his laptop and incorporating them into the score.

He maintains the music-box aesthetic, and carries the majority of the score with an 80-piece orchestra, but this is very much a horror score for today. To avoid the voices (so prominent in Goldsmith's execution) at the request of Kenan, choral performances were filtered through a Mellotron and "scare effects" were produced more by organic "house sounds" rather than traditional orchestration. The score's mechanics are tremendous: Streitenfeld began his career supporting Hans Zimmer and thinks more in terms of sound editing and design rather than in terms of traditional music composition. He plays with traditional arrangements in unique ways, a precedent that has allowed his reputation to steadily rise above those of most composers working today.

Somehow, though this is aesthetically very far removed from Jerry Goldsmith, it's also something of a return. Bringing back the grandeur of orchestration reminds listeners what was really so great about the original film in hopes of grasping new fans with a new version. "I think he was able to tap into the curiosity and mystery of what it's like to live in a house with access to the world of the dead," Streitenfeld told Variety. "That curiosity permeates the score and gives it a sense of wonder and life."

Garrett Tiedemann is a writer, filmmaker and composer who owns the multimedia lab CyNar Pictures and its record label American Residue Records.

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