John Carpenter, along with his collaborators Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies have released a new song, “Michael’s Legend,” as the final single from their forthcoming score for the Halloween Kills film. According to comicbook.com “Rather than being the pulsating, driving music that would accompany a more intense sequence in the film, this eerie track and its title likely means it will be paired with an expositional sequence that details the path of carnage the villainous Michael Myers has caused over the years.”
Listen to “Michael’s Legend” here:
In a statement by Sacred Bones, the record label through which the score will be released on October 15, they say “It’s just five notes plucked out on a piano, so sparsely arranged that it feels like barely more than a sketch, so simple that an untrained player can easily pick it up, but it’s one of cinema’s greatest musical accomplishments. By now, John Carpenter’s hypnotic theme to his 1978 horror masterpiece Halloween has embodied slasher-stalker anxiety for generations of filmgoers, and woven itself so into pop culture that it’s become musical shorthand for the entire horror genre.”
The statement continues: “Like the film itself, Carpenter’s score to the second installment of the new Halloween trilogy, Halloween Kills, stays true to the spirit of what made the 1978 original great while bringing it firmly into the present. The music is unmistakably Carpenter: the sinister vintage synth tones, the breath-stealing sense of menace that he conjures with just a few dissonant notes. But with a broader sonic palette, new digital techniques at his disposal, and a deeper sense of musicality, the Halloween Kills score is the work of a master artist who nearly 50 years into his career continues to push his creative limits and find new ways to thrill and terrify his fans.”
Halloween Kills comes out on October 15th in theaters and via Peacock, with the score coming out the same day via Sacred Bones Records. Other songs off this score to have come out include “Rampage” and Carpenter has also recently released his own album Lost Themes III: Alive After Death.