Composers tend to find their niche genre and gravitate towards it whether it’s horror, sci-fi, thriller, or action. For example, you aren’t going to find Danny Elfman doing too many romantic comedies these days.
A subgenre that you don’t often hear a composer specializing in is Halloween music, but that’s just what Chris Thomas has become known for. Whether it be a haunting video game (Hyde’s Haunt & Seek), a horror film (Don’t Look Back) or a Halloween theme park attraction (Knott’s Scary Farm), Thomas has created music for it. Some people might get chills when they hear this type of music, but Chris actually finds comfort in it.
“All things Halloween (and horror) have been a lifelong passion. Some of my earliest memories of film are watching scary movies (well beyond what was age appropriate) with my mom and grandma,” Thomas said. “Right away, I learned the scares and absurdities of this genre were something safe, fun, and fair to laugh at. Today, these genre areas are very warm and nostalgic for me”
So how does one create music perfect for the Halloween season? It’s all about finding new ways to create sounds or using instruments in unintended ways.
Thomas explains, “I have a habit of finding things I can break, re-string, and bow or hit. I love discovering strange and terrible resonances in metals, woods, and anything I can string together and make speak with my cello bow. I think the deepest scares occur when innocent sounds from one context are dropped into the most inappropriate and subversive place possible. For instance, I once wrote a very innocent, kiddie tv-show theme song for a scene at Nightmare NYC. The trouble is that you’re meeting a serial killer who thinks he is the cookie monster and wants to devour children.”
Chris discusses his new album, Purgatio, creating music for Fortnitemares and much more in the interview below.
Editor’s note: the following interview is edited for length and clarity.
No Film School: Can you talk about your backstory of becoming a composer? Was there a score that really opened your eyes to the industry?
Chris Thomas: I grew up in farm country in rural, Eastern Oregon and I was blessed to have a very musical family. Most composers find their way despite their path being a very lonely and solitary one. I was luckier than the majority of young musicians and profited immensely from this support.
Early in life my obsession was with cinema. After years of loving the films of Hitchcock, Fellini, Demy, and Kurosawa, I realized I was frequently singing tunes from their soundtracks. It wasn’t until I heard Danny Elfman’s music in Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christmas that I realized composers weren’t a crusty, extinct relic of the past. They were doing new and exciting things at that very moment in my life. I suddenly realized film scoring was the discipline I would devote the rest of my life to.
To this day, I live to serve filmmakers and storytellers of all kinds.
NFS: How did you get into scoring Halloween music? Was the horror genre always something you were passionate about?
Thomas: All things Halloween and horror have been a lifelong passion. Some of my earliest memories of film are watching scary movies (well beyond what was age appropriate) with my mom and grandma. Right away, I learned the scares and absurdities of this genre were something safe, fun, and fair to laugh at.
Today, these genre areas are very warm and nostalgic for me. Once I arrived in Los Angeles, my first mentor was the composer Christopher Young (Hellraiser, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Grudge) who helped shape me as a young composer. From there, I scored a number of horror films and TV shows that led to a call from the LA Haunted Hayride who already fans of my work. We collaborated on a score for their 2011 season, and the next year theme parks from across the country were calling to get an original score of their own.
This was how my quest to become the leading force behind Halloween music was born.
NFS: You recently released a Halloween album titled Purgatio. What would you like audiences to know about this project?
Thomas: Every year or two I look back at my favorite unreleased Halloween theme park songs, and compile them into an album. Out of 100 tracks I try to pick 25-35 songs I personally like, along with songs my clients seem to think worked best in their attractions. Out of those tracks, there is usually one, rather grandiose song that stands above the rest. This year the winning song was Purgatio! The music ranges from classic haunted mansion music, to murder-clown circus nightmares, twisted lullabies, and industrial punk with chamber orchestra.
It’s all over the place—or, “beautifully psychotic”, if you ask me.
NFS: You have scored everything from horror films (Don’t Look Back) to horror theme park rides (Knott’s Scary Farm in LA). Does your approach differ
depending on the medium?
Thomas: While there are similarities, there are a few philosophical differences.
First, a film is a more passive experience. The viewer is more a witness to the story. Theme parks make the viewer a participant in the adventure, often the central character. This perspective changes how I write music.
With a film, I write music that mostly narrates the subtext of what is not being said on screen. You’re also chasing countless synchronization marks where musical hits have to land on a single frame of film—literally 1/24th of a second. With theme park experiences, the music is all about the participant in that very moment. I want to heighten the adventure by reacting to all the things you’re seeing and experiencing. Also, we don’t need to hit synchronization marks with the backbreaking precision of a film score. It always feels like a vacation when scoring theme park rides and events.
NFS: What would you say are two instruments that create the scariest sounds?
Thomas: Anything can be terrifying in the right context. I have a habit of finding things I can break, re-string, and bow or hit. I love discovering strange and terrible resonances in metals, woods, and anything I can string together and make speak with my cello bow. However, I’d say the human voice is most capable of expressing the most dark and troubling sounds. We’re biologically programmed to react with great sensitivity to the smallest nuances in a person’s speech. It’s a powerful realization knowing we have this vulnerability in our senses, and an absolute joy to exploit it.
Finally, I think the deepest scares occur when innocent sounds from one context are dropped into the most inappropriate and subversive place possible. For instance, I once wrote a very innocent, kiddie tv-show theme song for a scene at Nightmare NYC. The trouble is that you’re meeting a serial killer who thinks he is the cookie monster and wants to devour children. It’s troubling at so many levels, but a dream come true for me.
NFS: Where do you get inspiration for your Halloween and horror music?
Thomas: While I would love to write whatever I’d like, I create music for clients who produce attractions. Like film, I get my inspiration from the show itself.
First, I take stock of a park’s overall aesthetics, its story, and what makes it unique from other places. Those elements help me build a stylistic palette. Next, each experience or ride will have a story and an aesthetic of its own. I’ll use sounds and colors from the main park palette, and apply them to the music in each individual scene or ride. The tunes, timings, and tempo may be different in each scene, but they will always be unified by a primary palette that defines that park’s sound. My preference is to be a blank slate, and let the place, its characters, and its story tell me what the music should do.
NFS: Why do you think your music resonates so much with the horror/Halloween fans?
Thomas: Every artist is a mix of life experiences, musical influences, and various interests. The reasons we sound the way we do is often a mystery. I’m usually the last to know why someone responds to my music since I’m so close to the material. That said, I have a few theories why listeners and clients keep coming back.
First, I always try to honor a certain amount of nostalgia in my writing. Even when conducting new and insane musical experiments, I like to make sure there are melodies and sounds that anyone can relate to. Next, I strive to write tunefully above all else. Argue all you like about themes the relevance of writing good themes, fans love a great tune they can sing along with. The more melodic score wins every time! Finally, I try to keep close to my roots in scoring for film. My music is written for adventurous experiences, and I want the music to have a sweeping, cinematic sound. My guess is fans just like these qualities in their music.
Malcom Gladwell tells writers that it doesn’t matter how your story ends, so long as the adventure getting there was really fun. I suppose that’s my philosophy about writing music.
NFS: Fortnitemares was temped with some of your Halloween music and then they brought you on to create original music for the game. What did you think when you got the call about this?
Thomas: This was a first for me! I suppose it’s quite an honor that the people at Fortnite and Epic Games were already fans of my Halloween theme park music. When I asked what sound they were looking for, all the references were tracks from my previous Halloween soundtracks. They even temped the final battle scene with one of my favorite theme park tunes, The Dark Rift. It was great fun getting to play in that space again.
NFS: Fortnite is a huge franchise. How does it feel to be part of this world? Have you gotten any feedback from audiences about this yet?
Thomas: Fortnite is indeed a huge franchise. It’s very much an honor to be a part of their legacy. I’ve been working non-stop since the release of the game on yet another video game, so I haven’t looked into the commentary just yet. That said, my friend in the UK who set up the meeting between myself and Fortnite said the comments are appearing all over YouTube and are pretty positive. While I make every effort to avoid comment threads, but I’m happy to hear it’s going in a good direction…so far.
Bradley Lanphear
NFS: Do you have a favorite track you created for Fortnitemares?
Thomas: Don’t assume the big, action-packed tracks would be the obvious favorites. This is far from the truth. I find the loudest sections require a certain simplicity for practical reasons, like making sure rhythms and melodies can clearly translate through all the noise. They give me less permission to explore rich sonic and harmonic landscapes. That’s why ambient tracks really appeal to me. You can use more devilish trickery to play with your audience’s senses and emotions.
Delicate and unsettling textures can be used to provoke deeper and darker corners of the listener’s inner world, and I’m always looking for ways to invade those parts of a person’s mind.
Author: Jason Hellerman
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
