Having binged on the first four seasons, I was reminded how great Gary Malkin's scoring of the series was. Some of the individual incidental tracks have a heavy late 80s/early 90s feel to them, sure, but it's still good stuff. Very evocative, and almost always hitting the intended emotional cues. There's one track in particular which I love, my favorite from the show. I don't remember when it was first used, but it was used repeatedly to great effect in the Connecticut river serial killer segment in the fourth episode of season four, first in the re-enactment with the police officers in the woods at the beginning and then during the hypnosis session. I'd pay an unreasonable amount of money for a CD of the incidental score just for a clean cut of that one.

Any parts of the UM score stand out for anyone else?

Having binged on the first four seasons, I was reminded how great Gary Malkin's scoring of the series was. Some of the individual incidental tracks have a heavy late 80s/early 90s feel to them, sure, but it's still good stuff. Very evocative, and almost always hitting the intended emotional cues. There's one track in particular which I love, my favorite from the show. I don't remember when it was first used, but it was used repeatedly to great effect in the Connecticut river serial killer segment in the fourth episode of season four, first in the re-enactment with the police officers in the woods at the beginning and then during the hypnosis session. I'd pay an unreasonable amount of money for a CD of the incidental score just for a clean cut of that one.

Any parts of the UM score stand out for anyone else?

I can't put my finger on exact moments, but my favorite one they use is the one that starts with the 4 piano keys over what sounds like an organ. Also, I'll never forget the scale thats played when they show the opening scene of the Dennis DePue segment of the open road.

So many good ones to choose from, but here are the background music segments that come most readily to mind:

---as Robert Stack says something along the linea of "No one knows if Dottie boarded a train that day ..." during the Dottie Caylor segment.
---as you see the man close the gate, then the camera pan through the impound lot, culminating in a shot of Lisa's car during the Michael Rosenblum segment.
---as Robert Stack says background information on John Russell, Suzanne Russell and John Dozier during their segment about the alleged boat accident (opening shot, IIRC, was a picture of the three of them)
---as the video of the actress playing Kathy Meehan hitchhiking dissolves into the picture of the real Kathy looking into a mirror.

I agree. The music score, and how it was edited into the stories, is one of the things that made the Stack episodes extraordinary. It made the scary stories more eerie and the sentimental stories more sad. It was really well done.

Season 1 Episode 3, the Susan Laferte and Doreen Picard segment. It doesn't get any creepier than the piano notes played at the beginning of that segment. This hits all the right creepy feels.

The music playing over the images of the victims at the end of the Ohio truck stop murders segment made it even more disturbing.

Season 1 Episode 3, the Susan Laferte and Doreen Picard segment. It doesn't get any creepier than the piano notes played at the beginning of that segment. This hits all the right creepy feels.

That intro music set the tone for the segment. The music in the Deborah Poe segment was haunting as well.

The music playing over the images of the victims at the end of the Ohio truck stop murders segment made it even more disturbing.

That's such a well done segment, all around. That music is great, and I think the music that plays in the beginning of the segment also does really well to set the "tragic but also frightening" mood.

I really like the Country Western Music that was featured in the closing credits in the first few episodes of Season 1.

Although, my favorite music is a track that was only featured in two cases to the best of my knowledge: Pamela June Ray and Tom Roche. In the Tom Roche case, this music was used as Stack was describing Tom's new job promotion he had just gotten.

I really like the Country Western Music that was featured in the closing credits in the first few episodes of Season 1.


Same here I love that music. It was always on the glen and Bessie Hyde segment and it comes back in one or two of the treasure segments I think. There are a few different themes like it in other Treasure/western segments.

Same here I love that music. It was always on the glen and Bessie Hyde segment and it comes back in one or two of the treasure segments I think. There are a few different themes like it in other Treasure/western segments.

You're in for a treat, then. UM's composer Gary Malkin has an album with some songs not dissimilar to that one, "Music of the Great Smoky Mountains". If you check the forbidden site, the first track on that album is posted called "The Journey". It's got a very similar feel.

You're in for a treat, then. UM's composer Gary Malkin has an album with some songs not dissimilar to that one, "Music of the Great Smoky Mountains". If you check the forbidden site, the first track on that album is posted called "The Journey". It's got a very similar feel.
Thanks! Will do

Season 1 Episode 3, the Susan Laferte and Doreen Picard segment. It doesn't get any creepier than the piano notes played at the beginning of that segment. This hits all the right creepy feels.

That is the scariest piece of music I've ever heard. What's also scary is the music played during the Son of Sam segment which I'm watching now, and that one note, not sure if it's a violin, cello, or synth that they play at the end of wanted segments where they do a slow fade to creepy composite drawings of suspects.

The music in the Lisa Ziegart segment when they talk to the student of hers who said she misses her and wishes there were more like her. I believe it was also used in the beginning of the segment with Delia Fazanni.