Music Cue Spotlight: Haunted Mansfield Theme

Mood/Feel: Horror/80's Retro

Composer's Notes: This cue was commissioned by Ryan Niemiec of Niemiec Digital Media for the Haunted Mansfield video project. It is not available for sale.

When Ryan first asked me to conceptualize a cue for his Haunted Mansfield project, he requested that I look to the Netflix smash-hit "Stranger Things" for inspiration. From studying that theme I knew I needed synthesizers, retro-keys and a big emotional swell to hold it all together.

The cue opens with a ominous chord, followed by an almost mechanical tolling that drives the track forward. At the center of this mechanical beating is a metal clang that acts as an industrial snare of sorts. Faintly in the background we can hear a low synthesizer arpeggiating what will be our main motif.

Next another big chord is played, and a new, electronic pulse begins to give life to the cue. Behind this beating pulse the chords change, continuing to give the cue and even more retro sound. Soon, the low arpeggiating synthesizer starts to give way to its high end counterpart, and its not long before the emotional weight of the cue begins to rush in as horns and strings bring real drama to the track. With that, large ambient drums add size to that pulsing beat, and an ascending synth pitch adds even more tension as the cue nears its climax.

Those drums pound out a triplet rhythm which seems to throw the cue off its rails, until finally our climax is reached, and all that is left is the orinigal arpeggiated synth, our orignial retro chords, and mournful strings. Almost as if that once beating heart has flatined, our electronic pulse is gone, and whats left of the mechanical tolling from the intro slows to an unfortunate end, and our cue dies just as softly as it had begun to live.