Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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this use of sound design in a manner rarely approached in preceding films, elements
of this method appear in Friday the 13 th . Donnelly explicates further, “The
convergence of music with ambient sound and sound effects contravenes the film
tradition of solid demarcation between such elements.” (107) Friday the 13 th does
not use this as fully as Saw, the integration of sound elements still appears within the
composition of the score. Composer Harry Manfredini describes the unusual
methods taken in recording the score: “I was also not a big fan or user of electronic
instruments at the time. I wanted to stay orchestral. So things that you might think
were synthesized were just me making sounds. I spent a lot of time scraping and
hammering on the piano of the poor studio owner, and playing screeching sounds on
an Irish tin whistle.” (Bracke; 39) The unconventional sounds serve to blur the lines
between ambient noise, sound effects, and score much in the way Donnelly describes
the use of soundscape in Saw. Observations of this use of sound have appeared more
than once in the short history of the journal Horror Studies. In this journal, James
Wierzbicki has lamented the fact that Hollywood remakes of Japanese horror films
have removed the context for use of specific sounds on the soundtrack leading to a
less cohesive narrative (2010), and Sarah Reichardt has written about the way Dmitri
Tiomkins’s score for Mad Love (1935; dir. Freund) brings added layers of narrative
to the film, making it useful not only in terms of emotional resonance but also
contributing to the development of plot and characters. (2011) This is representative
of a renewed interest in the aesthetic use of sound in horror, and the depth of
significance that modern critics attribute to sound in film.
A significant addition to this discussion would be that of the killer’s theme
which began in Friday the 13 th , and became an iconic trademark of the film,
continuing throughout the series. It is currently recognized as a repeated time delay