Dimitri Tiomkin

Tiomkin trained as a concert pianist in St. Petersburg and Berlin before emigrating first to the concert stage in America and then into film scoring, bringing an unusually rigorous European classical training to Hollywood genre work.

An Oscar-winning composer (High Noon), he gave the Arctic-set creature feature a score of genuine orchestral menace, years before synthesizers would become horror's default language. Trained classically in Russia and Germany before emigrating to the United States, he became one of Hollywood's most sought-after composers for westerns and adventure films.

His score for this film represents one of his more overtly suspense-oriented genre assignments outside his more famous western work, showing a stylistic range beyond what he's best remembered for today.