10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween (2007)

With Rob Zombie at the helm of this film, there was plenty of reason to be a bit fearful of what exactly would happen to the score. Zombie infamously first rose to fame as the lead singer of the heavy metal band White Zombie. Once he became a filmmaker, he kept a similarly heavy and grimy musical aesthetic for his films. On his first film, House of 1000 Corpses, Zombie handled the music himself. Even when he handed the duties over to Tyler Bates on his next film, The Devil's Rejects, he remained heavily involved in the recording process.

When he was hired for the Halloween remake, Dimension confirmed that he would "write, direct, produce, and serve as music supervisor" alongside now-frequent collaborator Tyler Bates, which made it sound all-but-certain that Carpenter's iconic Halloween themes would be getting some very drastic make-overs once again.

And they did.

But miraculously, the film frequently opts to keep things simple. Several times throughout, such as the first uses of the Halloween Theme or Laurie's Theme, it is Carpenter's original recordings instead of Tyler Bates' new ones. Once the film gets into the second and third act, viewers can hear more of Bates' score, which essentially just takes Carpenter's themes and layers on tons of ambiance and feedback noise.

So when the film busts out the original score, it is surprisingly effective. However, the longer the film drags on, the more frequent and grating Bates and Zombie's attempts at re-inventing the score become.