When the trailer for Quentin Tarantino's latest film, THE HATEFUL EIGHT, premiered during the summer, it instantly drew comparisons to John Carpenter's 1982 version of THE THING for many viewers. So much so that there was even a mash-up video made that mixed together the trailers for the two films.
As it turns out, THE HATEFUL EIGHT has an even greater connection to the Carpenter classic than a shared star (Kurt Russell) and the idea of a group of paranoid characters being trapped together in a snowbound setting. It also features music that composer Ennio Morricone wrote for THE THING. Music that went unused until now.
During a DGA-hosted conversation with fellow filmmaker Christopher Nolan, Tarantino revealed that THE HATEFUL EIGHT was the first film of his that he ever felt needed an original score, so he turned to Morricone. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts kept Morricone from being able to provide an entirely new score. The legendary composer had a back-up plan, though. He told Tarantino:
’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.’"
According to Tarantino, Morricone did end up composing around thirty-five minutes of new score for THE HATEFUL EIGHT, which was then combined with those unused tracks created for THE THING. So when THE HATEFUL EIGHT reaches theatres on December 25th, viewers will be seeing Kurt Russell take on the dangers of the Old West to the sound of music that was intended to be played over scenes of him fighting alien creatures more than thirty years ago.