Thirty years after Scream rewrote the rules of the slasher movie, Marco Beltrami’s original score returns in a new anniversary edition. Arriving August 28 via Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings, the classic 14-track album returns to vinyl in a collectible “blood-soaked” sleeve featuring Drew Barrymore as Casey Becker from the film’s unforgettable opening sequence.
Alongside the wide-release Woodsboro Bloodbath red vinyl, fans can choose from Knife’s Edge silver vinyl with a poster at Target, Surprise, Sidney metallic blend at Barnes & Noble, Don’t Hang Up clear vinyl at Books-A-Million, I’ll Be Right Back blue vinyl at Urban Outfitters, Final Girl splatter at Hot Topic, Wrong Answer Blood Red Splatter through Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings, and Final Phone Call blue vinyl at participating indie retailers.
For an even deeper trip to Woodsboro, the Deluxe Extended Cut Edition expands the score to 40 cues on CD and digital, bringing together the complete music previously included in the 2022 Scream box set.
→ PRE-ORDER / PRE-SAVE SCREAM (30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION)
A NEW KIND OF SLASHER
Released in 1996, Scream arrived with a killer hook: its characters knew the rules of horror movies, even as they found themselves trapped inside one.
Written by Kevin Williamson and directed by horror veteran Wes Craven, the film centered on Sidney Prescott and a group of Woodsboro teenagers being stalked by the masked Ghostface. Its combination of satire, self-awareness and genuine scares helped kick off a new era for the slasher genre.
Behind that mix of humor and horror was a composer who was almost completely new to the territory.
ENTER MARCO BELTRAMI
Just three years out of USC’s scoring program, Marco Beltrami had never scored or even seen a horror movie when the opportunity to work on Scream came along.
He submitted 13 minutes of music for the film’s opening sequence, and Craven quickly knew he had found his composer. “The music was haunting, beautiful and totally original,” the director later recalled. “Marco turned out to be shy and soft-spoken, but a fountain of ideas and innovation.”
A limited budget forced Beltrami to get inventive. Rather than relying on a full orchestra throughout, he recorded smaller combinations of musicians, using those restrictions to build a score that could shift from grief and unease to full-on panic.
The partnership stuck. Beltrami went on to score the next three Scream films and became one of Craven’s trusted collaborators.
MUSIC TO GET MURDERED BY
Beltrami’s score announces itself during the movie’s now-famous opening. “The Cue from Hell” follows Casey Becker’s phone call as playful unease turns into terror, with the music escalating alongside her realization that the stranger on the line isn’t playing a game.
Elsewhere, “Sidney’s Lament” moves inward. Reverb-heavy soprano vocals and atonal strings give Sidney’s grief its own musical identity, creating something mournful but never entirely safe.
Then there’s “Trouble in Woodsboro,” where beats, industrial sounds, manipulated vocals and synths pull the score firmly into the ’90s. The result fit a movie that was doing the same thing with horror itself: borrowing from what came before without sounding stuck in the past.
LISTENING NOTES
“The Cue from Hell”
Ten-plus minutes of steadily escalating dread. Put this on and you’re right back in Casey Becker’s kitchen, where an innocent phone call turns into one of horror’s great opening sequences.
“Trouble in Woodsboro”
Beltrami lets the ’90s into the room here. Electronic beats, industrial textures and unnerving effects make this one of the score’s clearest breaks from old-school slasher tradition.
“Tatum’s Torture”
A short, nasty burst of suspense for one of the movie’s most memorable set pieces. Definitely not the garage soundtrack Tatum would have chosen.
“They’re Crazy”
At nearly 10 minutes, this is where the score gets room to go for broke as the movie’s carefully constructed mystery starts coming apart.
“The Cue from Hell (Orchestra Only)”
Exclusive to the expanded program, this stripped-back version lets you get underneath the opening sequence and hear more clearly how Beltrami built the musical machinery behind the terror.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SCARY MOVIE?
Scream launched a franchise, gave horror one of its most recognizable killers and helped turn Beltrami into one of the genre’s leading composers. His career would eventually stretch far beyond Woodsboro, including Academy Award®-nominated work on The Hurt Locker and 3:10 to Yuma.
The 30th Anniversary Edition goes back to where that story began. The collectible vinyl revisits the original soundtrack program, while the 40-cue Extended Cut digs much deeper into the music behind Ghostface’s first rampage.
Three decades later, it still sounds like trouble in Woodsboro.
Follow @VareseSarabande and @CraftRecordings for more soundtrack releases, stories and favorites from the catalog.