>I'm going to pick on a cult classic: I was not
>impressed with "Halloween," and I think the much-
>prized soundtrack is most of the reason why.
>It's a good soundtrack, but it's just so
>overplayed.

I may be misremembering, but if I'm not, then the theme to the original Halloween has exactly three notes. I remember when I watched them again several years ago that in the first movie the soundtrack consisted almost entirely of these three notes played over and over again. HOWEVER, in the following movies, there is a subtle change. The same three-note theme is used again, but shifting tension is conveyed by the theme shifting down half a tone (from normal to flat) and then again from there occasionally down another semi-tone (to a full tone lower from the original) before springing back up to the original, which although doesn't offer much variety, does break the monotony and lend a much creepier feel to the whole deal.

Not that it says anything at all about whether silence would have been better artistically, but I always thought you might have dismissed the "creepy" flavor of the score after watching the original, in which it doesn't do any subtle shifting and instead keeps to those same three notes. I should watch the movies again, but my memory is that I was slightly annoyed by the theme in the first one, but found it insanely creepy in later movies in the series.

Of course, it's entirely possible I'm mis-remembering everything and the theme was the same for all the movies. Stranger things have happened.

-- Dave