(Credits: Far Out / Compass International Pictures)
Fri 31 October 2025 5:00, UK
October 31st is the perfect night to watch a scary movie. Maybe you want something classic? Something a bit more modern? Maybe you’re in the mood for vampires? Zombies? Or how about knife-wielding psychopaths with a penchant for a certain captain of the USS Enterprise?
If that’s your bag, then there’s only one movie to watch this Halloween – the one that bears the holiday’s name.
In 1978, the one and only Michael Myers burst onto our screens for the first time, and the world of horror would never be the same again. Over the next five decades, the ‘Halloween’ series would undergo all kinds of changes over the course of 13 feature films. They’ve changed protagonist, location, and even gotten rid of Michael a few times, but one thing that hasn’t changed over that time is the quality of the franchise’s music. That might be because they started in such a strong position.
As well as being a first-rate director and the owner of one of the finest moustaches to ever grace a human face, John Carpenter is also a very talented musician. He’s scored most of his own movies, going all the way back to his low-budget debut Dark Star. He’s also released a number of albums of original music, often in collaboration with his son Cody.
The theme song for Halloween remains arguably his best work – a tense, driving piece with all the intensity and terror of the series’ main villain. How did he come up with this enduring classic? By copying a bunch of people’s homework, that’s how!
Halloween director John Carpenter.(Credits: Far Out / Nathan Hartley Maas)
You don’t need a degree in musicology to notice that ‘Halloween Theme – Main Title’ sounds a lot like Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’. That song wasn’t written for a movie, but became world famous when it was included in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. Carpenter was a big fan of that movie and wanted Halloween to be as impactful. His use of similarly high-end piano notes and a driving beat in his film’s theme was clearly not an accident. Carpenter also admitted to borrowing from Dario Argento’s film Suspiria, which also inspired his work’s colour scheme and lighting choices.
On a technical level, the ‘Halloween Theme’ is played in a very interesting time signature. As Carpenter explained to PBS, this decision can be traced back to his childhood. “My father bought me a pair of bongos for Christmas when I was 13 and he taught me five-four time,” he said.
Adding, “I thought that was clever. I sat down with the piano just one in ‘dun-dun-dun’ and played octaves – that’s where it came about.”
The most truly remarkable thing about the Halloween soundtrack is how quickly it was completed. After feedback from a test screening revealed that the film wasn’t scary enough, Carpenter completed a new score in just three days. The main theme – according to him, at least – only took him an hour to make. Who says test screenings are useless?
It might not’ve been totally original, sure, but the ‘Halloween Theme’ still stands as a proper cornerstone of the horror film canon. So next time you’re tucking into one of Carpenter’s classics, maybe give a quiet nod to his dad, a test audience, and Mike Oldfield – they’ve got more to do with it than you’d think.
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