The finale music from Secrets Beneath the Floorboards returns to a rustic-acoustic flavor that reflects the film’s rural backdrop. After a bluesy guitar intro (courtesy of Tom Strahle), the piano plays the four-note theme that’s popped up throughout the score, serving as a musical farewell to our protagonists who have managed to survive to the finale. (This is probably not a spoiler if you’re familiar with Lifetime movies.)

The nice thing about simple themes is that they’re so versatile. For example, here are those same four notes being mysterious, and here they are transformed into the film’s love theme.

It’s time for that inevitable moment in every suspense/thriller film score: the final confrontation cue! In addition to the requisite hair-raising effects, this cue presents several of the film’s themes in a musical “getting the gang together” moment. (For example, the main theme becomes a creepy call-and-response between two solo violins.)

As usual, you can tell from the music when the bad guy gets his just deserts. (Or does he? See the movie to find out!) We conclude with some of the overprotective grandmother’s piano melody, hinting that maybe she wasn’t so paranoid after all.

This piece is about getting under your skin and causing disquiet, rather than something you leave the theater humming. In the corresponding scene from Secrets Beneath the Floorboards, our heroine’s sister has been taken hostage. The mood is, understandably, tense.

Instrumentation-wise, I combined organic-sounding timbres (violins) with electronic ones (the “growing” analog synth). To me this evoked the mood of a hostage situation — something alien intruding on something natural.