Many people are beyond themselves excited for Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming film The Hateful Eight and rightfully so! Tarantino is known for his wickedly smart scripts, his memorable characters, and his tight and iconic film style. And one of the other things people love about his movies are the soundtracks. Shying away from original material, Tarantino hand selects the music for his films, making sure that each piece compliments the scene.
But when it comes to The Hateful Eight, Tarantino was suddenly struck by the need to have original music, something new for the director. And who better to turn to than iconic and legendary composer Ennio Morricone?
But sad news was abound as it turned out that Morricone had scheduling conflicts and was unable to assist with a full composition. However, he brought about a very interesting suggestion, one that should speak to horror fans everywhere: Why not use the unused cues from The Thing?
Talking with fellow director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins) at a DGA-hosted event, Tarantino explains what Morricone told him:
’I wrote a whole orchestra score [for ‘The Thing’], and I wrote a whole synthesizer score, because I knew that was what [John Carpenter] was used to, and I gave him everything, and the only thing he used in the entire movie was the synthesizer main title [track].’ So basically, if you stay away from the synthesizer main title, all that music that’s on the soundtrack album has never been used in a movie ever. So, he goes, ‘What I can do, is I’ll write the theme…and with the other ‘Thing’ pieces of music, now you have your original score that’s never been used in a movie before.’
Now, people have already been comparing The Hateful Eight with The Thing, including the very clever mashup seen in this trailer. Plus, both movies take place in snowy environments and both have Kurt Russell. So how cool is it that music meant for Kurt Russell in The Thing will be used over 23 years later for yet another film with him in it?
