Soundtracks

CD Review: EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 03/10/2012
EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC soundtrack | ©2011 Nathan Furst

Ennio Morricone has gotten some real humdingers to score in his more-than-prolific career, particularly when it comes to such crazy genre pictures as ORCA, HOLOCAUST 2000 and TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS. Yet while these movies might be inadvertently hilarious, Morricone has always played the most ungodly material with a straight face, no more so than with EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC. One of this sequel’s many hilarious mistakes was turning its evil spirit into an African locust demon named Pazazu. Yet it’s this same tribal spirit that makes Ennio Morricone’s score for an otherwise woeful film so intriguing. With high-pitched […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE BATTLE OF NERETVA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/29/2012
THE BATTLE OF NERETVA soundtrack | ©2012 Tribute Records

Though his gloriously grandiloquent music was best known for having homicidal maniacs menace innocent women, or throwing gigantic beats onto the breach with valiant sailors, one of Bernard Herrmann’s most impressive, if least recognized scores pitted Yugoslavian partisans against the Nazi war machine for 1968’s THE BATTLE OF NERETVA. Essentially self-exiled in England by the time he landed this Yugoslavian-produced, Hollywood-style tribute to their country’s war effort, the always-defiant Herrmann went out with an bang for this type of epic movie, providing a score of fearsome, patriotic power, its themes raging with the sound of courage and sacrifice, as well […]Read On »


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CD Review: FRANTIC soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/28/2012
FRANTIC soundtrack | ©2011 Film Score Monthly

American star Harrison Ford ventured to France in 1987 for Roman Polanski’s fish-out-of-water thriller, as it would’ve been a legal drama of a whole different kind for them to team the other way around. A vital player in uniting their suspense sensibilities of Hollywood and Europe was Ennio Morricone, then riding high with his Oscar-nominated score for THE UNTOUCHABLES. That soundtrack’s edgy jazz sensibility would get an even more sinister, and strenuous work out with Ford as he navigated the mean streets of Paris in search of his kidnapped wife- with Polanski’s own young amour Emanuelle Seigner as his punk-ish […]Read On »


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CD Review: MAN TO MAN soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/27/2012
MAN TO MAN soundtrack | ©2011 Movie Score Media

Patrick Doyle’s longtime association with French filmmaker Regis Wargnier on such sometimes exotic, history-based epics as INDOCHINE and EAST-WEST has brought out many of the composer’s most impressively lush works. Traveling to Africa to bring two pygmy tribespeople back to “civilized” Scotland results in a culture clash of symphonic nobility and age-old ethnic percussion for this 2005 score. But more than some soundtrack relic, the soaring MAN TO MAN serves as a hugely impressive warm-up to Doyle’s far-more violent musical conflict between barbaric civilization and those it torments in RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Doyle’s talent for hearing […]Read On »


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CD Review: ANSWERS TO NOTHING soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/26/2012
ANSWERS TO NOTHING soundtrack | ©2012 Lakeshore Records

In such omnibus films as FRIENDS WITH MONEY, THE GYMNAST and KING OF KONG, Craig Richey’s proven he has a subtle, often dream-like way of musically getting into characters’ conflicted thoughts. It’s a talent that serves him well in the CRASH-like stories that make up ANSWERS TO NOTHING. Richey hears an alternative sound for acoustical instruments, piano and troubled samples, conveying a tone of both understanding and apprehension at the missing person’s case that links the film’s disparate characters. Richey’s work is subtly mesmerizing, his mellow groove powerfully contrasting with the rock overload of Nico Vega. Her raw songs scream […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA soundtrack | ©2011 Buysoundtrax Records

Future KOJAK composer John Cacavas made a notable horror scoring debut aboard 1972’s HORROR EXPRESS, a classic thrill ride that combined mod rock stylings with an orchestral sensibility as old as a fire-eyed Siberian missing link. Cacavas applied an even groovier approach the next year to one of history’s greatest fiends, hearing him in service to an even more evil master as The Count tries to wipe out humanity with the bubonic plague. These SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA would also turn out to be the swan song for Christopher Lee playing the Count at Hammer films, though his nemesis Peter […]Read On »


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CD Review: ANIMALS UNITED soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
ANIMALS UNITED soundtrack | ©2011 Perseverance Records

If there’s a musical king of the funny animal jungle, then David Newman can hold the title with the likes of ICE AGE, the SQUEAKQUEL to ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, two SCOOBY DOO flicks and DR. DOOLITTLE among the various CG and live-action creatures that have opened their mouths for a hip joke. That original language is German in KONFERENZ DER TIERE or ANIMALS UNITED as it’s known over here. But no matter if the dubbing’s in Deutsch or English, the wonderfully antic voice of Newman’s comedy music is loud and clear. While he’s capable of such relaxed scores as […]Read On »


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CD Review: HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS: LIMITED EXPANDED EDITION

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 02/25/2012
HALLOWEEN IV soundtrack | ©2011 Ahi Records

Some serial killers need a right hand knife, especially when they also happen to be the director and composer. Such was the assistance John Carpenter required after not only making HALLOWEEN. but also creating the most notorious, and toe-tapping theme in horror score history. That’s how sound designer-turned-composer Alan Howarth was brought into the series with HALLOWEEN 2 and given the “in association” credit for his teaming with Carpenter. Skillfully abetting that film’s far more visceral shocks with eerie atmospheres and relentless rhythms, the collaborators next turned to computer-generated horror for the series SEASON OF THE WITCH. However, HALLOWEEN‘s most […]Read On »


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CD Review: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING soundtrack | ©2012 Lakeshore Records

It’s time again to defrost ninja vampire warrior Selene from deep sequel freeze. And though Marco Beltrami gave her a more traditional orchestral horror score approach the last time out in UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION, it’s certainly cool to welcome the series’ original composer Paul Haslinger back into the ongoing Lycan-bloodsucker feud, which gets joined by humans hell-bent on wiping both clans out for Selene’s future AWAKENING. Going for a creepily ambient approach that reflected his Tangerine Dream roots in the first UNDERWORLD score, and then bringing an epic scope to the series’ impressive historical prequel RISE OF THE LYCANS, Haslinger goes […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE WRONG BOX soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE WRONG BOX soundtrack | ©2011 Intrada Records

By 1966, John Barry was fully into the action swing of 007, the dark dramas of THE CHASE and KING RAT, as well as raising a female lion that would win him his first Oscar for BORN FREE. Far less known, but equally impressive was Barry’s talent for very British comedy, whether it was accompanying the jazzy woman chaser of THE KNACK or providing lethal gas for  THEY ALL DIED LAUGHING. THE WRONG BOX provided Barry with another black-humored romp as the last surviving members of an aristocratic class wait to see who’ll be the last man standing, and inherit […]Read On »


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