John Carpenter

Short of time and money, the director of Halloween wrote its music himself: a cold piano figure in 5/4, repeated until the tension is almost unbearable. John Carpenter scored his own pictures that way for years, with pulsing synthesisers and minimal, hypnotic riffs.

Those themes, from Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fog to Escape from New York and They Live (both with Alan Howarth), built a sound of chilly analogue menace that echoed through decades of synthwave, horror cinema and electronica.

After stepping back from the camera, he began making standalone albums. Lost Themes, recorded with his son Cody and godson Daniel Davies, imagined soundtracks for films that don't exist, and the trio went on to tour, compose for the new Halloween trilogy and turn heavy on 2026's Cathedral.