> 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.

This is a possibility. I don't remember if I found the theme in later episodes creepier, but I definitely found it a lot less annoying. I think choice of instrument had something to do with it too, though; the original movie has a very dated sound to it.