Romero opted to follow the Night of the Living Dead method, raiding 60-plus cues from the De Wolfe Music Library and juxtaposing these bizarre, jaunty themes with images of terror. Goblin’s score has been widely available since the film’s release, but US viewers might be confused hearing it, as the mainstream edit of the film used elements of Goblin’s score along with a handful of stock music. Thanks to the involvement of Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, who edited the European version of the film, prog troupe Goblin handled the score on that specific cut, offering up some of their most memorable themes. It’s one of Romero’s must unusual pairings of music and visuals it’s not hard to see why the director asked Rubinstein to collaborate again on 1990’s Tales From the Darkside: The Movie.Īrguably George Romero’s masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead is blessed a suitably complicated soundtrack. His brother, Richard Rubinstein, was the film’s producer, which no doubt helped coax Romero from library music to something a little more risky.Īnd risky it is: Rubinstein completely avoids usual horror tropes, opting to embellish Romero’s unique vampire tale with melancholy jazz moods instead of haunting strings and stabs. What was alien and awe-inspiring just a decade earlier becomes a horrifying juxtaposition as African-American leading man Ben (played by Duane Jones) is gunned down in cold blood by a gang of marauding rednecks.Ĭomposer Donald Rubinstein was just 26 years old when he “wrestled with personal discipline” to compose the score to Romero’s coming-of-age tale of identity and abuse. Spencer Moore’s eerie, tape echoed sci-fi textures were a fitting opening for 1959’s Teenagers From Outer Space, but they take a more sinister turn when Romero uses the same cue to accompany Night of the Living Dead’s controversial ending. These were sounds and themes that had already been used on a handful of low-budget horror and sci-fi movies, but were repurposed by Romero, somewhat ironically, to create a nostalgic backdrop for his genre-defining film. Romero opted not to use an original score, instead selecting and editing familiar snippets from the Capitol Hi-Q production music library. The soundtrack to George Romero’s enduring zombie-flavored social commentary isn’t your average set of horror cues by any means. Romero’s soundtracks are almost as iconic as the films themselves, from Spencer Moore’s spine tingling opening to Night of the Living Dead to Herbert Chappell’s ‘The Gonk’, which aside from being used on the end credits of Dawn of the Dead was used in Shaun of the Dead, Robot Chicken and was sampled by Jonny Trunk. His output slowed until his death this year on July 12, but Romero never lost the drive to churn out non-conformist horror that bucked tradition and sidestepped easy scares. Think AMC’s The Walking Dead has a monopoly on the “zombies as social commentary” trope? George Romero did it in 1968.Īrguably, Romero’s high point came in 1985 with Dawn of the Dead, a zombie film so iconic that its setting – a hulking American shopping mall – is still widely referenced in popular culture. Bursting onto the scene with influential low-budget zombie movie Night of the Living Dead, he made Pittsburgh a global horror capital and kickstarted a post-modern obsession with the undead that’s still visible today. John Twells takes a closer look at Romero’s finest soundtracks, from his collaboration with Italian prog act Goblin on Dawn of the Dead to the melancholy jazz of Donald Rubenstein’s Martin score. Romero died at 77, leaving behind a legacy that has influenced generations. On Sunday, July 12, legendary horror auteur George A.
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