Returning to "Horror"
After #It Follows, I knew I wanted to wait for the right opportunity before jumping back in to score another horror film, if at all. And so I waited, and turned down quite a few opportunities until Bodies Bodies Bodies came along.
It's not exactly horror, per se. It's a bit of a "spoof": a project that doesn't neatly fit into any single genre. For that reason, it was an intriguing (and exciting) project to figure out.
Writing music inspired by Gen Z — the generation that follows my own — was a novel opportunity I could not pass up. Exploring a contemporary sound heavily inspired by trap and pop was interesting for me since I'd done very little of that in my career.
Initial Process
I started by watching the film and having discussions with the director & editor, sometimes in the same meeting. Through these sessions, we began to formulate ideas about what the score could be. We knew we wanted it to stand out from being just another horror movie, because it's not that — it's more of a whodunit, comedic thriller. We wanted the music to be referential to contemporary styles that young people were listening to, which is where the trap influence comes in. For me, it was enjoyable to try because I had never written anything like that before. Early on, this meant getting out the 808 sounds, the percussive bass synth, making drum grooves, and generally having fun with it.
Score Synopsis
The score attempts to be simplistic - detached, but energetic. It's a meditation on the characters and has a bit of a "party" element, which acts as one way to detach itself. The music leaves a light footprint, focusing on sounding cool and moving the film forward. It also tries to tie together narrative threads and balance the pacing.
We tend to ride shotgun with Bee on the score, because she is our looking glass into this world. Other themes and elements serve to emphasize plot progression and connect moments such as the deaths of characters and the various confrontations that occur. One example is the ♫light, bell-like tones that underpin the group's searching, spiraling conversations.
Finding the Musical Identity
The first couple of things I wrote, we didn't use. In fact, only about half of what I made ended up in the movie. This preliminary act of writing down what comes to mind and getting ideas off my chest is often an essential part of my creative process. Years later, I released the album ⌾B-sides, B-dies, which contains a lot of this unused material.
Score as Commentary
One of those tracks, called ♫Baud, is the first thing I wrote for Bodies and is reminiscent of #It Follows. Unlike that score, we realized that the "Bodies" music needed to be less about underlining things. However, figuring out that role was tough and required experimentation, conversation, and going against my own natural tendencies.
Moment of Unlocking
It was our music editor, Joseph DeBeasi, who suggested we might want the music to function in a more detached commentary role. It was his insight that helped me to treat the score as if it were the retorts of a nefarious observer, or perhaps an evil puppet master—someone who was actively participating in the manipulation of the characters. I think that's when things unlocked for me.
Needle Drop Style
The goal with the score was to create music that just "is" — it does its own thing, standing apart from the moment-to-moment. In this way, the music is ambivalent towards the characters, in the sense that there's not always a direct reaction to events. The ambivalence lends a predatory attitude to the score, reflecting how everyone in the house makes poor choices due to miscommunication and manipulation.
Because of this broad-stroke nature, you could say the music is treated more like source music, what people sometimes call "needle drops" (i.e., throwing a pre-existing song over a scene). This approach was a way to fight against my instincts — I tend to want to respond to the subtleties as they unfold in each scene.
Not only did we treat the score like source music, but specific source choices also inspired the score's sound. Part of the allure for me was to take on contemporary sounds and influences and see where that would take me. As a result, there are plenty of ideas and techniques borrowed from recent pop — things like scotch snaps, trap hi-hats, subs, and melodies that almost seem to nag at you on purpose. The source music helped me determine the right vibe for the music - that it needed to be horror-inspired, but also a bit blasé, because the characters are somewhat spoiled, and alarmingly jaded for their ages. As someone who tends to write earnest-type material, it was a good challenge for me to adopt that mindset.
Comparison to It Follows
Typically, when creating a horror score, you would respond more to the visuals. In It Follows, for example, the music functions more in sync with the moment-to-moment on-screen action. Sometimes people refer to this technique as "Mickey Mousing", as it can sound cartoonish if taken too far. For Bodies, our approach was more like watching an MTV show, where they play songs in the background. But we still tried to find ways to elevate the scenes, without directly responding to everything.
Thematic Elements
Getting Away From Horror
Ultimately, Bodies is not a horror film but a film that plays in that world stylistically, and I tried to reflect that with the score. The music incorporates some horror elements, but we're not trying to scare you with it outright. There are no jump scares or "Psycho" style music stabs. We intentionally tried to subvert expectations tied to the genre. We shied away from playing up the scarier moments in many cases, because the character interplay is often dramatic — and already carries quite a lot of weight.
Signal Loss
Early on, I suggested that "signal loss" be a key component of the music. Sonic elements in the music degrade in a manner that resembles low-quality MP3s or a spotty video call. The idea is that the characters' neuroses consume them so thoroughly that they are unable to discern what's happening around them. The music first employs this tactic as the characters literally lose signal on their phones, and so the games begin.
The Clave
The high-pitched sound, which I lovingly called the clave, has a shrill quality that makes it clean and pop-ish while still having a "thriller" component. It was an element I discovered, about halfway through scoring the film. It emerged from a rhythm in Bee's theme, which worked well in many different contexts. It helped to have a unifying motif to connect the various parts of the score.
Other Elements
The low-frequency material does quite a lot, especially the sub (a combination of a drum and a bass in a synth). It has a heartbeat quality that carries many of the tunes both rhythmically and harmonically. I also experimented with using texting sounds (e.g., phone typing). They didn't make it into the film, as A24 thought they were too obvious. But they were cool enough to include in the standalone soundtrack. They also appear in B-sides, B-dies.
Favorite Moment in the Film
The film's half-subtle but consistent emphasis on comedy is my favorite aspect. Alice, in particular, is hilarious, and her performance really helps balance out the heaviness.
My favorite moment in the film is when they watch David's TikTok video at the end. The music leading up to that scene has a tongue-in-cheek quality. Two underwater sequences bookend the film, and the ending one takes on an air of absurdity. The first time through, we're introducing the characters as innocent, naïve people. By the end of the film, this association becomes a half-truth.
Takeaways
Taking a Bird's Eye View
Bodies is the first project where I really emphasized periodically watching the entire movie. The context of a piece of music in a story really matters. It might feel great in isolation, but if it doesn't work with the neighboring sequences of the film, it won't improve the overall experience.
Collaborative Challenges
Every film is a totally different battle. On It Follows, the creative team around the music consisted of me, the director, and the editor. On this project, there were more people involved, making it more challenging to stay "in the pocket" of the film. The picture was locked for a while before completion, leaving music to be an open and ongoing area for experimentation. Even though Bodies Bodies Bodies had half as much music to write, the thinking around this film and its music shifted frequently, and I had to actively jockey to stay abreast of where the film was going.
Mostly Happy With Result
In hindsight, the film would be even better if we had cranked the music more in some of the more key, high-energy moments. The final score is not entirely how I wrote it or wanted it to be—there is one cue in the film that is an edit that I did not have a chance to respond to at all—but I'm still generally pleased with how it turned out.