THE OPEN LETTER SERIES

The open letter series will be a collection of open letters written to other people, ideas or activities that have taken place over the course of the last few days of uploading in both the public realm and in my personal life. What exactly is an open letter? An open letter is a letter which is often critical in nature that is addressed to a particular person or group of people but intended for publication or to be read by a large group of people. In this case, that is you, the reader.

Each open letter will discuss a different topic, in varying degrees of depth. From politics to personal issues, the Open Letter series aims to provide clarity on issues, create ideas or inspiration, or, in my case, to become a place of stress and thought relief. Nothing is safe from receiving an open letter, not telly shows or book characters, a class lesson or a provoking idea.

And so it begins: The Open Letter Series

An open letter to horror movie music.

Dear horror movie music,

I have recently come across you and your work while watching one of your employer’s latest additions, the 2016 slasher called Hush.

As you may be aware, Hush is a movie that stars Kate Siegel as Maddie, a deaf woman who lives on her own in a forest and, when her neighbour is murdered by your local mad-man, known only as ‘Man’ (played by John Gallagher Jr.) she becomes his next target.

It wasn’t an absolutely terrible film. Horror movies and I do not get along at all, which may make me slightly biased towards them. The only thing I liked was how she genuinely tried to get out of her house, call people, use Facebook to tell the outside world what was going on. Before fighting ‘Man’, she pulls up her laptop and makes a Google document (which AutoSaves) and describes the person who is trying to kill her. Smart.

Horror movie music, I think within the context of Hush, you are entirely unnecessary. Every sound is unnecessary in this movie, really. Maddie is deaf, remember? True terror comes from the idea of the event taking place in your own life; for the events on screen to be happening in reality, meaning that we should be able to relate to the character on screen as much as possible. If she can’t hear the murderer coming (which is a spoof on the movie’s part; if she has been deaf since age 13 and she’s 28 now, her other senses would have come into play and, similar in the way that Bethoven famously composed music, she would have been able to feel the vibrations of Man’s footsteps as he entered the house).

How could Hush have been a better movie? By you not being in it, horror movie music.

I’m going to tell you a little something about your past. The only reason you came to pass was because horror movies were becoming un-scary, some exclusions aside (namely Psycho ©1960). The sharp pinch of a violin, the intense pounding of piano keys, the low brrrum of the cello’s A string has become expected by movie watchers to appear at jump scares, creepy character reveals and those scenes where you can’t see what’s happening but you imagine that someone is probably running away from the over-glorified murderer or ghost or whoever the antagonist in the horror movie is.

The only time I have ever seen horror-music be effectively used was in the aformentioned Hichcock psychological thriller Psycho. Music producer for the work, Bernard Herrmann, paid special attention to the film scene-by-scene and made suggestions as Psycho progressed and added music when he knew it to be appropriate. The Julliard graduate set the bar that you, horror movie music, can only now dream to meet. There is a reason why Psycho made it to the US Library of Congress and such films as Hush did not (me credo, soundtrack plays a role in qualifying).

If a movie wants to truly express horror, movie writers, directors, editors etc. need to understand the value of good acting. It’s the human experience (sans music) that truly captivates our fear. The look of true terror, the yelling, crying, anxious personalities that take up our horror-showing screens is what truly causes people to fear for their lives because of events taking place in movies (or, a cause for laughter in the minds of immature 8-12 year olds). It’s you, the music, that suggests fear, but fails to provide it. Because of the association of horror-music to horror that causes watchers to respond with yelling or flinching to what they are watching.

I know I’m not the first to think this way about you, and I know I won’t be the last. There was a movie released in 2015 called Final Girl in which the characters made remarks about horror-movie music and used their timing to determine what to do next in their escape from the horror movie that they were sucked into. (Side note: Final Girl is actually pretty good in the way that they take superficialities from horror movies and insert characters who are well versed in the realm of horror movies and drop them into one).

So, horror movie music, use yourself sparingly. In a time in which much of what happens in real life could fall into the genre you are supposed to help, we have no need for you to be exhausting viewers with your promotion of fear in a time when our need for peace supersedes what services you provide.

Best wishes,

Johanna