A history of the theremin in movie music

When the original Ghostbusters was released in 1984, it hit upon a balance of comedy and genuine fright that was new to audiences of the time. A key to its success was Elmer Bernstein's score and use of the theremin: a fairly modern instrument, by most standards, that confounds many with its complexity.

Invented by Léon Theremin in 1920 and patented in 1928, the instrument necessitates perfect pitch (or near to it) and is played without physical contact by the performer. Using two metal antennas for relative position, a player uses the positions of the hands in relation to the antenna to control oscillators for frequency and amplitude.

Miklós Rózsa defined the theremin's presence in film by using it for his scores to The Last Weekend, The Red House, and Hitchock's Spellbound. Bernard Herrmann used it for his work on The Day the Earth Stood Still, which came to define much of our understanding of science fiction and horror films — as referenced by Howard Shore, who brought the instrument to Tim Burton's film Ed Wood in 1994, imagining it is what Wood's films would have sounded like could he afford a score.

The instrument has seen a surge of new interest in recent years established by a 1993 film titled Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey. Directed by Steven M. Martin, the film chronicles Léon Theremin and his rise from a Soviet gulag to develop the instrument that would come to enrapture people with its otherworldliness. The film won a top award at Sundance and brought a new generation of composers and designers to the theremin.

The instrument has become something of a pop kitsch standby, with people turning random items into theremin-sounding devices as well as augmenting true theremins in strange and unique ways.

Recently it has also made appearances in the second season of Hannibal and on Will Bates's score for Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Roque Baños utilized it to great achievement in 2005 for his score to The Machinist — using it not just for oddity or fright, but aligned as an instrument with as much capability and power as the surrounding orchestra.

Ghostbusters was a new type of film, combining top comedy talents of the time with a story played straight to develop a successful blend of comedy, action, and fright. After its success many films have followed trying to match the same combination, with varying levels of success. The theremin is key in not only unsettling the viewer, but also grounding the score. It's a little scary and a little goofy.

Theodore Shapiro was given the task of writing the reboot score and the result is a finely tuned composition that sounds much more like a typical 2016 blockbuster than Bernstein's quirky score. It's elegant, and strangely beautiful for the type of film it supports — but it's hard not to miss that theremin.

Garrett Tiedemann is a writer, filmmaker, and composer who owns the multimedia lab CyNar Pictures and its record label American Residue Records.