'10 Cloverfield Lane' composer gets crash course in Blaster Beam

A creepy movie about people hiding out in a bunker in a potential end-of-the-world scenario needs a creepy instrument for its score.

Composer Bear McCreary wanted a sound to represent the mysterious underground space of 10 Cloverfield Lane (on digital HD platforms Tuesday, Blu-ray/DVD June 14), and in this exclusive behind-the-scenes clip, McCreary explains how he wanted “something that created a lot of bass frequencies” for director Dan Trachtenberg’s film.

Enter the Blaster Beam, an experimental percussion/stringed instrument from the 1970s that’s “like a 15-foot-long pedal steel guitar from hell,” McCreary says. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

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He also got the master of the Blaster Beam, Craig Huxley, to perform on the 10 Cloverfield Lane soundtrack. (Fun fact: The instrument was also used in music for the first two Star Trek films, The Black Hole, 2010 and Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones.

“While it doesn’t play a melody that you can hum,” McCreary says, “it to me is the signature sound of 10 Cloverfield Lane.”