TRACK #177:

Phantasm (Intro and Main Title) by Fred Myrow & Malcolm Seagrave

With so many great horror scores from the 70’s and early 80’s, you might be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. Maybe Carpenter’s Halloween Theme is your choice. Perhaps it’s Michael Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Would you select Charles Bernstein’s theme from A Nightmare Elm Street? Maybe even Wendy Carlos’ work on The Shining? Or is it something from Goblin?

All great choices, without question.

However, I don’t think any horror fan would fault you if your selection was this opening number, from Don Coscarelli’s 1979 classic Phastasm, performed by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave.

This entire score is great, fashioned as it is with a veritable dream-list of vintage electronic gear. Frequencies from an ARP Odyssey to a Moog Model D, to a Mellotron and even a Fender Rhodes buzz all over this thing, and it simply oozes a warm, green slime of 70’s electric creepiness.

Spooky, unsettling and perfectly matched for Phantasm’s eerie, fever-dream otherness, it ticks every box you could want for a Horror Theme.

On top of that, it’s Halloweeny as all get out, and I can’t think of a more fitting track to start off this October 31st.

I don’t know if I could ever actually pick a favorite horror theme, but if I was in a pinch and hard-pressed to give a knee-jerk answer, I might very well just pick this one.