Storyteller first...

UPDATE: TOH raves about "Let Me In," and offers several possible explanations for its failure to reach an audience -- including this:

It boasts the year’s best score. One reason that I didn’t expect so many of the Sneak Previews crowd to bolt was that I had seen the film before the preview, without the score by last year’s Oscar-winner Michael Giacchino ("Lost," "Up"), which upped the dread and intensity quite a few notches. The film moves from delicate interludes with two young people learning to love each other to brutal school bullying and horrifying, animal-like vampire attacks, as well as what looks like the pathologically methodical murders of a serial killer (Richard Jenkins).

"Lost" and Pixar composer Michael Giacchino is an HG (or at least a Chute) favorite. An interview published today as part of a multi-article salute in Variety, offers a clue to his appeal.

[Giacchino says] he's a storyteller first and a musician second.

"As a film composer, your job is not to write music," he says, "your job is to tell a story. I went to film school, and I have a fascination with the process, so it's very important to me that everything works together. It's not about what I'm doing; it's about what this piece of art needs to help propel it to the next level."

...

"He understands character and structure," says director J.J. Abrams. "So while it's wonderful to work with him as a composer, I give him the scripts in advance and get his comments and notes and show him cuts and scenes and rough cuts of the whole piece, just to get his reaction."