Michael Abels, Composer Of Jordan Peele's 'Us', Balances Terror With Empathy

Get Out may have been Michael Abels' first film score, but he's always known what makes music scary. "I actually have a memory of hearing 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' by Edvard Grieg when I was in a crib," Abels says, laughing. "And that piece terrified me."

After Get Out arrived in February 2017 — making 40 times its budget, becoming a cultural event and eventually earning an Oscar for best screenplay — writer-director Jordan Peele remembers getting a call from Steven Spielberg, who mentioned Michael Abels. "You've got to use him again," Spielberg said. "It's like me and John Williams." Peele was already planning to keep working with Abels, but that sealed it.

"His skill set is immense, and he has mastered many different genres of music," Peele says of Abels. "The best way for my movies to feel new and fresh is for the soundtrack to feel like something familiar, but also something that we've never heard before."