Here, in no particular order, is a short list of some scores that I think transcend the ordinary, approaching sublimity and forever providing a sonic shorthand for the films they represent.

I have the score of 1968's Rosemary's Baby on vinyl and it's wonderful. Among the highlights: the stuttering trumpet during "Panic," when Rosemary is trying to escape the clutches of the coven; the sudden rising of the weird recorder music and chanting when Rosemary and Guy are messing around on the floor of their new apartment at the Bramford; and Mia Farrow's deceptively sunny lullaby that opens and closes this marvelous film.
Komeda is completely up to the task, weaving menace through Manhattan with a score that sounds simultaneously otherworldly and hip.

Again, Komeda rises wonderfully to the occasion. His score is chillingly beautiful, as befits the freezing climate in the film. Even during Dance's lighter moments, when he brings in a chorus to accompany the musicians, the singers sound....well, dead.
2. Suspiria (1977). My God, talk about an epoch-making score. I was 17 years old when I saw Argento's masterpiece at the State-Lake Theater in Chicago and became aware of surround sound in film for the first time, although I'm sure I'd heard it before. But Suspiria was so loud...and the sound of breathing was all around me. Even though it was the Fox International Classics edited-down-for-an-R release (which they're still running on Fox Movie Channel), I was blown away by the violence...and Goblin's awesome music.
Suspiria had such a profound effect on me that I programmed it when I was running my college's 16mm film shows back in the day. The film rental company didn't send me the correct scope lens, however, so I was forced to screen it squished—and everyone in the audience was so riveted they stayed for the whole thing, even though everyone on the screen had severe anorexia. When I moved to California, I found a brand new vinyl of the soundtrack on Venice Beach for $5.00 in 1981 and it's still one of my most prized possessions. Witch!
3. Carrie (1976). I love the scores of Pino Donaggio. His career highlights include music for The Howling, Piranha, Dressed to Kill and Don't Look Now, but I still have to give the career achievement award to his magnum opus—Carrie. It's lush and string-driven, giving the necessary emotional weight to the spectacular performances by Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie.

Co-star Amy Irving's sister Katie provided vocals for two of the prom songs, but strangely she doesn't seem to have done much of anything else. I still have the original score on vinyl that I bought when I was 16...and it still sounds great.
4. The Omen (1976). Jerry Goldsmith won the Academy Award for his ferocious score accompanying Richard Donner's film about the arrival of the Antichrist on earth. Now when I watch the film, Gregory Peck and Lee Remick remind me uncomfortably of Ron and Nancy, but Goldsmith's music is still majestic as ever, taking religious themes and turning them into something far more sinister.
Goldsmith's celebrated career contained a number of horror highlights—Alien, Poltergeist, Planet of the Apes and Gremlins, to name just a few. Not a horror film, but one of his best is his jazzy score for Polanski's 1974 classic Chinatown.

But Harrison hits all the right notes (ha!) with his playfully creepy music that fits the film's comic book images perfectly. And Viveca Lindfors is so hilarious as crazy Aunt Bedelia in "Father's Day."
Harrison also did the music for Romero's company's syndicated series, Tales from the Darkside and the feature Day of the Dead before moving into directing himself.
6. Psycho (1960). Certainly endless pages have been written about Bernard Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's shock masterpiece, but it belongs here, too.
Herrmann made the daring choice of using strings only for Psycho. In an interview given in 1971, the composer explained that he did so because he felt that he could complement the black-and-white photography of the film by creating a black-and-white sound. And the shrieking, stabbing music accompanying the shower scene almost didn't happen, because Hitch didn't want music. However, he was unhappy with the finished product, and Herrmann talked him into providing his famous cue.
I don't have the soundtrack album, which wasn't released in its complete form until 1996, when it was performed by the Scottish National Orchestra, but I do have a cover of the theme song by the Fibonaccis, a Los Angeles art punk band from the early '80s.
7. Pan's Labyrinth (2006). Not a horror film in the strictest sense but an extremely dark fantasy, Guillermo Del Toro's masterwork is graced with a hauntingly beautiful score by Javier Navarrete, who also scored Del Toro's 2001 The Devil's Backbone.

I still can't get over this classic losing the 2007 Best Foreign Film Oscar to the ultra-boring The Lives of Others. I mean, I've probably seen Labyrinth ten times, and Lives...once.

Just listening to it brings back perplexing memories—Richard Burton's sweaty performance, Linda Blair tap-dancing merrily away with no bra on—and, of course, the normally dignified James Earl Jones forced to wear a really goofy bee costume.
What are some of your favorites? Please feel free to leave a comment!
2 comments:
I would add the disturbing score by David Hess for the original "Last House on the Left."His score swings widely from the ridiculous (a riff composed for kazoo!) to the the haunting song, "The Road Leads to Nowhere." While not what one would plop on the turntable for relaxation, it does, however, insinuate itself into the filmgoers conscious, as the perfect complement to the movie's relentlessly grim story.
Wendy Carlos' electronic scores for A Clockwork Orange and The Shining were as wonderfully chilling as any on this list. Sadly though, Stanley Kubrick left most of her music on the cutting room floor in favour of Ligeti et al. Just thought I'd drop it in.
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