My job scoring a horror movie is like being the barker at a carnival. A good barker can get anyone to walk into the roped-off tent. Especially with the main title, my job is to convince the audience to take the leap into the film even though their better sense is telling them, "I should put my popcorn down and get the hell outta here"!

Horror allows you to do things as a composer than you're able to do in no other style of movie. The music has to be aggressive. You can't tiptoe around. It has to be incredibly focused dramatically - no time for second thoughts. It needs to generate a kneejerk reaction.

My job scoring a horror movie is like being the barker at a carnival. A good barker can get anyone to walk into the roped-off tent. Especially with the main title, my job is to convince the audience to take the leap into the film even though their better sense is telling them, "I should put my popcorn down and get the hell outta here"!

I'm a fan of 20th century orchestral music, the experimental avant-garde composers of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. In horror movies you can write music that if it was performed on the concert stage would have the audience running out of the room with their fingers in their ears. But in a movie all of a sudden it becomes incredibly accessible and appreciated.