Scores of memorable horror movies have presented equally outstanding scores. John Carpenter's Halloween and John Williams' work on Jaws are considered the two best examples of thrilling thriller scores. The classic Universal horror films did not produce many memorable original scores. The Creature from the Black Lagoon featured a memorably eerie score that expertly mixed the adventurous with the terrifying.
The original Bela Lugosi classic, Dracula (1931), chose to "borrow" stock music and insert the material into the film's opening credits. Opting for "Swan Lake" by Tchaikovsky as the opening theme to Dracula seems like a strange mismatch - until the music commences.
The first chords heard on the soundtrack reveal a blaring noise that immediately draws the viewer's attention towards the screen and does so with an impending sense of doom. The brash few seconds of the opening quickly leads into a much softer tempo that maintains a vague sense of eeriness. To an audience in 1931, an audience that had no idea what to expect from Universal's Dracula, the first 30 seconds of the title theme present a combination of creepiness and dark - albeit upbeat - romance.
Yes, there is a cloud of dark, gothic in the air of this segment from "Swan Lake," which is why the music fits the film's opening so expertly.
The tempo then picks up to a much faster and more frantic pace. The music betrays a sense of the ominous danger upon moving in this auditory direction. Dracula is the supernatural embodiment of danger creeping into a romantic tale. The rapid change of pace, mood, and theme in "Swan Lake" is perfectly appropriate. The opening credits of Bela Lugosi's Dracula (1931) film does not require a gaudy, brooding, or shocking theme. The subtle nature and the ironic tempo change in "Swan Lake" fit the feature perfectly.
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![Universal Monsters & Neurotics: Children of the Night and Their Hang-Ups by [Anthony M. Caro]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41p32SUE79L.jpg)
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ReplyDeleteFor me the use of Swan Lake is a kind of dark humor before it's time when you tie it in with one of my favorite scenes when Dracula first appears and introduces himself with that enticing accent then pausing as he ascends the stairs hearing a wolf howl "The children of the night what music they make".
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