'Archive 81' and the Power of Scary Music
How frightening scores enhance the way we experience film and TV.
In 1978 composer and director John Carpenter gave viewers one of the most unforgettable horror movies, scores, and theme songs of all time with Halloween. Though the film and soundtrack are both regarded as irrefutable classics now, that wasn’t always the case. Carpenter described a less than favorable early private screening for the movie on his website: “I screened the final cut minus sound effects and music, for a young executive from 20th Century-Fox (I was interviewing for another possible directing job). She wasn’t scared at all.”
Though the tepid feedback from the unnamed executive was likely a gut punch for the young director, it didn’t stop him from improving the film. Instead, he “became determined to ‘save it with the music.’”
The right music elevated Halloween into an iconic film and one of the most profitable horror movie franchises of all time. A great title theme and/or score can also make a bad horror movie good and a good horror movie great.
Even a critically panned 1990s flop like Brainscan (which received some kinder reviews in recent years) earned a certain amount of cultural capital when Three 6 Mafia flipped composer George S. Clinton’s haunting “Brainscan (Main Title)” into "Fuckin' Wit' Dis Click" - a highlight from the group’s seminal Mystic Stylez record.
The ability of the right composer/s to enhance a viewing expedience was once again on display for the Netflix’s creepy series Archive 81, a recent show adapted from the popular podcast of a the same name. The story revolves are Dan (Mamoudou Athie), a highly skilled archivist who enjoys restoring and digitizing old video. Viewers learn early on that Dan was drawn to his profession because of a horrific personal tragedy.
In the first episode a man named Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan) requests a meeting with Dan. Davenport is the CEO of a mysterious company known as LMG and he asks Dan to digitize a collection of severely damaged video tapes from 1994. From the very first meeting it’s evident something isn’t quite right about the job.
The tapes belonged to a student named Melody (Dina Shihabi) who was in the middle of a doctoral project at NYU. She documented the Visser apartment building as part of her doctoral research. As Dan begins to work through her recordings he sees that the building was full of eccentric residents. Some of them become more ominous with each successive tape.
Without giving away too much in the way of spoilers, there is a simple chant that plays a critical role throughout the series. The tune is hummed by numerous characters and also played on the piano in several scenes. “The Visser Ritual” is short and sparse, but the effect of it throughout the series is bone chilling. It absolutely brings the creepy factor to a new level. With a lesser score the show would not have been as compelling. Listen below and prepare to shudder.
The Archive 81 score was created by Portishead member Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, whose names may ring a bell due to their work on the sci-fi/horror hybrid Annihilation and the critically acclaimed science fiction film Ex Machina. The two composers’ work throughout the series is masterful, from the spooky title theme and the “The Visser Ritual” to less foreboding selections like “Tape Cleaning.”
In February of 2022 journalist Alani Vargas spoke to them about their methods in an excellent article for Netflix’s publication Tudum. A variety of techniques were employed during the recording process to make the music fit the visuals, including the use of bowed glass instruments to achieve synth-like sounds, production effects used to emulate cassette tape, and drums sounds that were created by hitting radiators.
In a rather compelling moment in the interview Salisbury reveals he neither he nor Barrow are “massive horror fans.” That didn’t prevent them from working to understand the complex emotional blend needed for a horror score to hit all the right notes. Horror fans or not, Barrow and Salisbury proved to be the perfect duo for this particular job and other scary scores from their growing resume.
In a sad ending to this story Archive 81 wasn’t picked up for a second season after it demonstrated a great deal of potential. Nevertheless, it seems Barrow and Salisbury still have more to offer the genre. A24’s Alex Garland-directed Men also features their original music.
It is an exciting time to be a fan of horror movies and the music within them. Viewers and listeners have never had more access to a greater array of films and music both past and present. If Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury are any indicator, the genre has a very bright future.
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