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THE MISSING “CREEPSHOW” MUSIC CUES!

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Based on sheer unanimous appreciation alone, Creepshow may be one of the greatest horror films ever made. Truly: I’ve never heard one disparaging comment made about it. Inquire, and those who’ve seen it will excitedly describe their favorite segment, their eyes alight and hands animated. For those raised on it, it’s like a plateful of comfort food. And, due to its fall-tinged intro, it has become a Halloween staple. Needless to say, it’s a horror classic.

One of the things that helped cement Creepshow among horror royalty is its incredible score. Composed by frequent Romero collaborator John Harrison (using only a Prophet V synthesizer), the score successfully manages to craft a hauntingly Gothic aura punctuated by goofy camp – no easy task, but one that compliments the vibe of the comic book-inspired film perfectly. Romero himself has said that Harrison’s score delivers on the promise the tagline of the film avows: “the most fun you’ll have being scared”.

Not long ago I discovered Harrison wasn’t solely responsible for creating the amazingly spot-on EC comics-era sensation the score elicited. Many of the recognizable cues, it turned out, were from Capitol Records’ stock catalog. It was a trick Romero had used since the beginning of his career: pacing and editing his films using old stock music, which he often left in once the film was finished. (Just look at Night of the Living Dead‘s score – all stock music, some of which would later find its way into Romero’s Tales from the Darkside television show, as well as, you guessed it, Creepshow.)

Most recently, Waxwork Records released the original Creepshow soundtrack, but it was missing all of those additional stock music cues. In 2014, La-La Records released an “expanded” version of the soundtrack, which included a few of the music pieces, though not many – 14 in all, including only one from “Father’s Day”.

But, thanks to the help of the Internet (and my own dogged searching), I’ve collected almost 30 pieces of missing music cues, including 6 from “Father’s Day”. These pieces were incredibly difficult to track down. There are a few message boards which (thankfully, gratefully) have the music cues listed by name (and Creepshow‘s IMDB page is a wealth of info), but locating the actual audio files proved to be almost impossible. Even though some of these tracks were released on the Creepshow Expanded OST, they don’t even exist on Youtube.

(Complicating the search was the fact that a.) several of the songs have near identical names, and b.) many of the composers worked under different aliases. Whew, exhausting.)

It’s important to hear these cues in full because they’re just incredible. Bill Loose’s work, especially, which is all at once gorgeous, lush, and dramatic. It’s amazing these composers created these beautiful pieces with the knowledge they were to be cataloged anonymously along with hundreds of other pieces for the sole purpose of filling out a record company’s stock music library. It seems almost unjust, in a way – relegating these tunes to a lifetime of obscurity, only to be showcased for literal seconds at a time in the background of some nondescript cartoon or low-budget film.

(And check out Loose’s “Sonar Waves”, specifically about 45 seconds in – any horror fan worth their salt ought to recognize those notes instantly.)

As far as I know, this page is the only place online you can listen to the (almost) entire collection of missing cues from Creepshow in one spot. Unfortunately, it is not complete. I am still missing about 20 tracks, which is mind-boggling. Like I said, these have been hard hard hard to find. But I will continue to update this page as I discover the final, missing cues. Below, the tracks are listed in the order that they appear in the film.

None of this would be possible if it weren’t for the fine, informative folks at YowpYowp and Film Score Monthly (specifically, a member named PrimeEvil whose own keyboard handiwork I’ve included below).

I won’t bore you with my blathering any longer. If you’ve read this far, you deserve to be rewarded with the music. Enjoy, and if you happen to have a hot tip on any of the missing tracks, please email me!





 

30 thoughts on “THE MISSING “CREEPSHOW” MUSIC CUES!”

  1. I am really grateful you have put this together! I have been looking for some of this music for along time.

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  2. I can’t find the closing music cue from “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”. If you must know, this music cue is from the scene where Jordy, who looks an awful lot like Swamp Thing, puts a rifle or shotgun to his own head to end his own life. Do you know where that missing cue is? And if you do, could you please post it on the page for me?

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  3. Thank you so much for sharing this! So cool to hear what I know now is Tide Research & all those other William Loose gems. The cues from Father’s Day especially have stayed with me since I first saw Creepshow in the 80s.

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  4. This site is absolutely awesome! I’m so glad I stumbled upon it a few days ago. I’ve always been so disappointed that all the musical cues were never on any of the soundtracks.

    Just wanted to add another music cue, for those that want to hear it. The beginning of the Father’s Day episode, when it transitions from Comic to reality, here is the youtube link to the Mozart music that is playing:

    Skip to the 8:03 and you’ll recognize that particular piece of music.

    Enjoy!

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  5. Does anyone have the Erik Markman cues from Release No. 15 (‘Invention,’ ‘Rondo,’ and ‘Sicilienne’) which were used in ‘The Crate’?

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  6. I never comment on articles I read until now. I knew I wasn’t crazy! The waxworks release was missing music cues! I was very disappointed but until reading this article a minute ago, I had no idea that not all the music was composed by John Harrison. There’s gotta be a complete/mostly complete version out there, either official or fan arranged. I would love to get my hands on it.

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    1. I’m also trying to recreate some of the lost John Harrison score music. For example, the scene were Richard is at Harry’s door and tells him that something “very nasty” is going to happen to Rebecca.

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    1. Considering De Wolfe are the publishers who also put out “Don’t Let Go”, I’d say you might be onto something!

      Thanks again for reading!

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    2. Well, Don’t have much to say but a HUGE THANK YOU!!!! Indeed these pieces of music are simply amazing and add a lot to the ones already provided by the previous release. You did a fantastic job!

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  11. Thanks so much for posting these! That ‘Dramatic Eerie’ cue from “Tide” with the woman’s voice and “Current pulled him in” has haunted me for years. Please check out my FB page and hook up if you’re interested in “Creepshow” screen-used props as well.

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  14. Unfortunately Big Band Era ’30s is not actually used in They’re Creeping Up On You, leaving one jukebox track yet to be found.

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    1. Good question! I know Romero’s NOTLD is also full of stock music cues from the same people – it might be a toss-up between them!

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  16. I also had my e-mail up on FilmScoreMonthly. I wish you’d e-mailed me to save you the headache of searching this stuff out, which took me 3+ years. Would have just sent you the tracks 🙂

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  17. Hi, this is PrimeEvil. If you happen to have Facebook messenger, add me for a chat. Of all the cues I have, there are only 5 missing from the film. Send me an e-mail and we’ll sort something out, if you’d like.

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  18. This is fantastic!! Thanks for your hard work tracking these down. They sound absolutely incredible in their entirety. I’ll be listening to these tracks for a long, looonnngg time. 😉
    Thanks again

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    1. They’re amazing, right? I have been listening to them on repeat for the past week – they’re great background music for just about anything.

      Thanks again for checking it out!

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