Halloween 2K26 - The Lost Score of Halloween H20

John Ottman is one of those filmmakers whose résumé is almost ridiculously varied. As a composer, he’s probably best known for movies like The Usual Suspects, X2: X-Men United, Superman Returns, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Nice Guys, and Valkyrie. Horror fans will also recognize his work from Apt Pupil, Lake Placid, Eight Legged Freaks, Gothika, Hide and Seek, and Orphan. He even directed Urban Legends: Final Cut.

Oh, and he’s an Oscar winner.

In 2019, Ottman won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his work on Bohemian Rhapsody.

So, yeah. The guy is pretty talented.

Interestingly enough, Ottman is also credited as the composer of 1998’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, but if you sit down and watch the finished movie, a surprising amount of what you’re hearing isn’t actually his original score.

Instead, portions of Ottman’s music were replaced or supplemented during post-production with music composed by Marco Beltrami, including previously existing cues from Scream, Scream 2, and Mimic. Beltrami also contributed some new material during the final stages of production.

Which raises an obvious question. Why hire an accomplished composer to create an original score for your big Halloween revival and then replace chunks of it with music audiences had already heard in Scream?

Studio meddling, of course. Fuckin Weinsteins...

Ottman approached H20 with the idea of taking John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween themes and expanding them into a larger orchestral score. The goal was to give Carpenter’s music new life while creating something more character-driven that would help the movie feel both dramatic and frightening.

It was a great idea, especially considering what Halloween H20 was trying to accomplish.

The film wasn’t simply another Michael Myers sequel. Jamie Lee Curtis was returning as Laurie Strode for the first time since Halloween II, and the movie was designed as a twentieth-anniversary celebration of the original film. Ottman’s score could have served as another connection between Carpenter’s 1978 original and this new late-’90s version of Halloween.

Unfortunately, the studio had other ideas.

During test screenings, H20 reportedly performed very well while using its temporary soundtrack. That created a problem. The studio had a movie that audiences already seemed to like, and changing the music suddenly looked like an unnecessary risk.

That temporary soundtrack included music by Marco Beltrami, who was fresh off of Scream.

So when Ottman’s finished score arrived, much of the temp music remained. Beltrami’s material was worked into the movie alongside portions of Ottman’s score, creating the strange musical mixture heard in the theatrical version.

It’s particularly noticeable if you’re familiar with Scream, and that’s a shame, because Ottman’s original score is really good. Thankfully, his work wasn’t completely lost.

Ottman’s Halloween H20 music was eventually released as part of the album Portrait of Terror, allowing fans to hear much more of what he originally intended for the film.

Listening to the original material makes H20 one of those fascinating horror-movie “what if?” situations.

I actually like Marco Beltrami’s Scream score quite a bit. It fits Scream beautifully. But that’s also part of the problem: when I hear that music, I think of Scream.

Ottman’s score sounds like Halloween.

It takes Carpenter’s familiar musical ideas and gives them a larger, more cinematic late-’90s sound without completely abandoning what made the original themes so effective. Considering that H20 is ultimately a movie about Laurie Strode confronting something that has haunted her for twenty years, that connection to Carpenter’s music feels particularly appropriate.

Would Ottman’s complete score have made Halloween H20 a better movie? I think so and I actually found a fan-edit that I'm hoping to watch and see if it impacts the movie as much as I think it will.

At the very least, it would have given the film a stronger musical identity of its own instead of occasionally sounding like Michael Myers wandered onto the set of Scream.

For fans of horror scores, or anyone interested in the alternate versions of movies that almost existed, I definitely recommend tracking down John Ottman’s original Halloween H20 music. It can be found on most streaming services.

It’s a fascinating trip into the “what if?” side of the Halloween franchise and a glimpse at the version of H20 we almost heard.