Ranking Every John Carpenter Theme Worst To Best

Many of John Carpenter's cinematic creations have a distinct identity, in part because of the style and visuals, and in part because of the sound. Carpenter's expertise in all things atmospheric meant that he could retain artistic control over both of these elements. Whether it was horror, fantasy caper or dystopian action, we in the audience never forgot what we saw or heard.

John Carpenter also scored other people's movies, and offered his devout musical services to the Halloween franchise two movies past his directorial input. Likewise, the themes to some of his own movies were scored by other musicians, the most prominent example being The Thing, which was composed by the mighty Ennio Morricone.

Whether they draw from electronic, rock or mixed nuances, virtually all of Carpenter's movie themes were cool. It's just that some were cooler than others. The following list takes into account not just scariness, but atmosphere in general, as well as the cleverness of composition and the memorable effect it had on audiences. You will also detect an edge of retro in some of these, and of course, that is half the fun.

This composition is essentially John Carpenter in the great tradition. So why, you ask, is it at the bottom of the list? The reason is this: if its intention was to unnerve the audience, then that intention goes horribly self-destruct after the first 50 seconds.

A relatively suspenseful electronic build-up gives way suddenly and inexplicably to a boogie rock section that, even with some added subtle eerie lead, contains more cheese than is humanly palatable for a singular horror music theme.

That's not to say that it isn't fun, as is the enjoyably daft collective that is the Body Bags TV movie. Just remember John Carpenter's role in the movie as proof of this. Still, creating a theme that devolves from a nicely sinister opening to suddenly sounding like Hulk Hogan's just burst into your front room is a little beneath Carpenter's capabilities as a musician.

It's the first example on this list which validates the theory that the scarier nuances of his theme music did not always carry over very when into the 90s.