by Charlie Brigden, Staff Writer

It is challenging to imagine the enormous dorsal fin of the shark from Jaws without the driving force of John Williams' famous musical theme. Or the gigantic lumbering form of Godzilla without Akira Ifukube's booming low frequencies accompanying it. It's safe to say we love our monsters. Every generation has its creatures that embed themselves into its collective unconscious, and their music propels them beyond the big screen and into our hearts.

That these come with such alarming regularity makes it difficult to whittle down a list of favorites. It is especially tricky because you have to avoid getting bogged down in a conversation about whether or not X is a suitable monster and some eligibility nonsense. In any case, this is not a list of "the best," it's just a bunch of soundtracks that we think represent some of the most fantastic music ever to accompany the monsters of moviedom. 

King Kong (dirs. Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Shoedsack 1933)

It's not surprising that the scoring of monsters was near the forefront of the film music evolution. Silent films like Nosferatu (1922) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) had proved exceptionally popular, so when the sound era arrived, the producers of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedsack's epic about a giant ape run amok in civilization took full advantage. While RKO balked initially at using a new score, Cooper paid for composer Max Steiner himself. The result was a storming success that helped give depth and vulnerability to Kong while providing a thrilling accompaniment that amplified the film's adventurous spirit.

Tarantula (dir. Jack Arnold, 1955)

You would think the sight of a giant spider traversing the primordial Arizona landscape would be terrifying by itself. While you might be right, Universal nevertheless upped the scare factor to eleven with its music for Jack Arnold's atomic age picture. Tarantula was what was known as a compilation score, where Universal "tracked in" music from previous films to save money. They subsequently hired a composer to compose mostly interstitial music to blend the previously-created cues into the soundtrack. In Tarantula's case, the composers were Herman Stein, who had scored the well-regarded space adventure This Island Earth (1955), and a young Henry Mancini, who would go on to create the slinky jazz theme for Blake Edwards' The Pink Panther in 1963. The pair's talent was such that they seamlessly wove in music from films such as western Four Guns to the Border (1954) and noir Six Bridges to Cross (1955) to create a dynamite score for the enormous arachnid's exploits.

Orca: Killer Whale (dir. Michael Anderson, 1977)

Both composer Ennio Morricone and producer Dino De Laurentiis were Italian legends and would cross paths more than once, notably when Morricone scored De Laurentiis' Danger: Diabolik, the 1968 adaptation of Angela and Luciana Giussani's comic that Mario Bava directed. Later on, Morricone would return to the producer for Orca, a nature-fights-back chiller made in the wake of Jaws that had a twist: the killer whale of the title was the anti-hero of the piece, claiming vengeance against the humans that had wronged him. Morricone's score is spectacular, to say the least, reaching into the depths of the animal's soul to compose a tragic and soulful soundscape that is beautiful by itself but, in the film, manages to make the animal's crusade not only believable but poignant.

Alien (dir. Ridley Scott, 1979)

Interestingly, the sweeping insectoid soundwave that opens Ridley Scott's utterly disturbing sci-fi horror was an afterthought. Composer Jerry Goldsmith originally spent time writing something more mysterious and lyrical, but Scott asked for something different. Goldsmith said the resulting piece took about five minutes, but it's an intrinsic musical element that set the tone for the film and the subsequent franchise. The composer went out of his way to assemble an orchestra made up of strange instruments, such as conch shells and didgeridoos, and electronic tape delay machines that would make the music sound even more unearthly. Despite Scott cutting the score to bits and placing parts wherever he felt like it, that it's still terrifying is a tribute to Goldsmith's abilities. In fact, it's probably the scariest score that's ever been written.

The Thing (dir. John Carpenter, 1982)

Speaking of Goldsmith, he was John Carpenter's first choice to score his adaptation of John W. Campbell's 'Who Goes There?', but the composer was already employed. In an example of the talent pool at the time, the director turned to Ennio Morricone, who wrote a brutal and weird score that Carpenter didn't think fit the film - Morricone would eventually use that material for the score of The Hateful Eight (2015). Still, one thing he did compose was a pulsating motif that instantly captured the isolation and tension of the film's setting and which dominated much of the film's soundtrack. Carpenter and Alan Howarth contributed some music, including the opening and end credits. However, that one cue still embodies The Thing's apocalyptic dread and is as iconic as anything else from the film.

Little Shop of Horrors (dir. Frank Oz, 1986)

Sadly the only musical on this list, Frank Oz's adaptation of the off-Broadway show, which was itself an adaptation of the 1960 Roger Corman film of the same name, is spectacular. The film has many great things, especially the wonderful Audrey II puppet, which is like a cross between Man-Thing and a Piranha plant, but the wonderful music and lyrics of Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman send it into overdrive, such as the fabulous trio of Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, and Michelle Weeks who provide a hilarious greek chorus. At the same time, Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene shine their way through great numbers like “Skid Row” and “Suddenly Seymour,” and Steve Martin steals the show as the dentist of our nightmares. But it's Levi Stubbs getting the final word in as the "mean, green mother from outer space," particularly in the director's cut where the plants win.

Jurassic Park (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993)

People may be initially puzzled by this inclusion, and yes, there's a lot of wondrous and exciting music to show the magic of cloning, courtesy of the great John Williams. But there are also velociraptors that will tear you apart before you even realize they're there, as neatly laid out in the opening sequence. Throughout the film, Williams employs a sinister four-note phrase known as the "Carnivore motif," which happens to be the sound of the raptors most of the time, to the point where the end credits, after all the gentle and majestic themes, use the motif to finish on a moment of reflection that, like the opening, is clearly a warning. Jurassic Park's intentions are clear as a low choir and thundering percussion accompany the title card on-screen: don't fuck with nature. Don't fuck with nature.

The Host (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2006)

Composer Lee Byung-woo rightly received huge plaudits for his music for 2003's A Tale of Two Sisters. Here he creates a similarly beautiful yet terrifying score using classical and modern elements. The initial monster attack features tense high strings over a pulsating drum beat, but additional material for it is much more eerie and foreboding than direct. A similar theme runs through Bong Joon-ho's monster classic, with the great Song Kang-ho trying to find his daughter, who has been spirited away by a giant monstrosity that emerged from South Korea's Han river. This also tunes into his resonant music for the family, which has a moody side that is also quite beautiful, recalling the great Howard Shore.

Cloverfield (dir. Matt Reeves, 2008)

Technically, Matt Reeves' breakout picture doesn't have a score, with the only pieces of music in the film itself being a mishmash of contemporary tracks released as "Rob's Party Mix" after one of the characters in the movie. However, the end credits used one of the most incredible pieces of film music of the 21st century. Known as 'Roar,' the cue - which runs just over twelve minutes - was composed by Michael Giacchino, who has gone on to score Reeves' other movies, from Let Me In to The Batman. Giacchino's homage is note-perfect and a thrilling piece of score in its own right. But his Cloverfield contribution is a big tribute to the everlasting genius of Akira Ifukube, composer of the original Godzilla (1954), and other kaiju classics like Mothra (1961) and Matango (1963).

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (dir. Michael Dougherty, 2019)

Continuing with the Big G, 2019 finally saw a sequel to Gareth Edwards' excellent Godzilla (2014) in the form of a triple kaiju showdown. Coming in to follow up Alexandre Desplat's fine score was Bear McCreary, currently enjoying plaudits for his magnificent music for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. McCreary dropped any pretensions of subtlety and came in loud and furious, doing the right thing by bringing back Akira Ifukube's original Godzilla themes and his own brutal compositions. Of particular note is his theme for the three-headed menace that is King Ghidorah, with mystical chanting and fearsome, driving brass genuinely worthy of the deadliest kaiju of the lot.