The basement is full of sounds that further
establish the imminent evil: scurrying rats; the
soft, whirring sound of a tripod’s tentacle as it
searches the labyrinth of rooms; rippling water
that is pooling there; and the sounds of the stealthy
grasshopperlike creatures that have also emerged
from inside the tripods. Meanwhile, as Rachel con-
tinues to scream, her father attempts to calm her by
singing; she sings also. But Harlan has now decided
to take on the tripods himself—an act that Ray knows
will prove to be fatal for him and his daughter—so
Ray kills Harlan (offscreen), apparently beating him
to death with a shovel, as indicated by the accompa-
nying heavy drumlike sound.
When Ray and his daughter emerge from the
basement, they are confronted with a desolate
landscape and an entire arsenal of eerie sounds
associated with the tripods and other creatures.
For an instant all is quiet (a rare moment in this
very noisy movie), and then the tripods strike again
with all the familiar sounds we have come to
expect. Ray attempts to hide in a car, which is
smashed by the tripods; Rachel and Ray scream as
they are grabbed separately by the tentacles that
are swirling everywhere like giant snakes.
It is already clear, though, that the Ferriers can
withstand anything, and fulfilling that expectation,
they once again escape, to Boston, where the
tripods self-destruct in violent explosions and fire-
works. We hear the last sputtering bursts of flame,
the gushing red fluid, and the last gasps of the crea-
tures. At the conclusion, as leaves blow across a
Boston street (reminding us of the winds in New
Jersey at the beginning of this adventure), Rachel
and Robbie reunite with their mother, who has
been visiting her own mother for the weekend. We
hear somber piano music and sad horns as the
camera surveys the dead landscape.
As for the musical score, even though written by
John Williams, the most famous composer of film
music alive today, the fright that is at the heart of the
story is realized more effectively with sound effects
than with music. Contrary to our expectations (if we
are, in fact, familiar with Williams’s other work),
Williams neither creates a musical theme for each of
the major characters—although there is a recurring,
low-key motif for the tripods—nor leaves us with
one of his memorable “wall of sound” experiences.
We are frightened when we see the unfamiliar
tripods, and Williams underscores that fear with
atonal music, but he also understands that what we
see in this movie demands a level of sound effects
that necessarily assigns music a secondary role.
It’s interesting to compare Steven Spielberg’s
movie adaptation of The War of the Worldswith
Orson Welles’s classic radio adaptation. Spielberg
spent some $135 million to make the movie and
employed hundreds of artists and technicians in theArmageddon As the tripods attack the fleeing crowds and
devastate the landscape, military jets and missiles fail in
their attempts to subdue them. We hear the sounds of the
tripods and the chaos they create, aircraft, music, and various
electronic sounds that add to the doomsday atmosphere.
Farmhouse refugeRachel and her father take shelter in
the house of Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins, far right). Their
initial meeting is a moment of comparative quiet that is rare
for this movie; all we hear is Harlan’s soft voice and the
offscreen sounds of distant battles being fought outside.TYPES OF FILM SOUND 413