Music in the Horror Films of Val Lewton (Music and the Moving Image)

Val Lewton’s horror films revolutionized a popular genre through a much-studied and still widely emulated visual style emphasizing shadows and absences. By denying audiences visual confirmation of horror, his reforms placed a fresh burden on the soundtrack of his films. This book offers a fine-grained study of the Lewton unit's transformational sonic style which introduced the first "jump scare," liberal use of pre- musique concrète , and an original orchestral score for every film in the series in violation of "B" movie norms. Their orchestral scores often exceed the conventions of film music as we hear the RKO Music Department ignoring instructions thus freeing their contributions to signpost the path toward each films’ essential themes. List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction 1 “Happy Mood Over This, Roy”: Webb’s Score for Cat People as Film Analysis 2 Fractured Reasons and Fractured Reason in I Walked with a Zombie 3 The Leopard Man as Penitential Horror Film 4 Searching for Meaning in The Seventh Victim 5 A Wartime Fable in the Sounds of The Ghost Ship 6 Music for Amy and Her Friend: Webb’s Score for The Curse of the Cat People 7 Boris Karloff and the Soundtrack of The Body Snatcher 8 Validating Uncertainty on the Isle of the Dead 9 “Dainty Little Notes, Ain’t They?”: Roy Webb’s Age of Reason in Bedlam 10 A Closing Argument References List of Films Cited Index Examines how the music in Val Lewton's horror films enhanced the films' aesthetics and visual style