Lalo Schifrin: “The Exorcist (Rejected Score)” (1973)

Lalo Schifrin’s score for William Friedkin’s The Exorcist film was rejected by the director, who ended up using existing contemporary pieces by Anton Webern and Krzysztof Penderecki instead. Schifrin returned to the horror genre scoring The Amityville Horror in 1979, and indeed there are elements of that score that echo the discord and menace of this score. It would be interesting to see how this music might have plugged into Friedkin’s film, though, even though the director made good use of the music he opted for instead.