By Randall D. Larson

George Romero’s celebrated Dead series has taken as much of a musical evolution as it has a cinematic one. From the classic black-and-white original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, with its snippets of tracks culled from music libraries that provided a surprisingly organic musical accompaniment, to the heavy rock beats and pervasive synthetic atmospheres of DAWN OF THE DEAD (composed by the Italian rock band Goblin) and DAY OF THE DEAD (scored by composer and now director John Harrison), through the compelling synthetic sound design of composers Reinhold Heil (RUN LOLA RUN) and Johnny Klimek in LAND OF THE DEAD, Romero’s wicked soundscape has risen and fallen with his reanimated brain-munching cadavers. The latest Romero zombie epic, DIARY OF THE DEAD, recently released on DVD, revisits the franchise with a fresh viewpoint. Continue Reading »

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Although often compared unfavorably to Goblin’s music for SUSPIRIA, keyboardist Keith Emerson’s score for the sequel, INFERNO, is every bit as in tune with the film, perfectly matching the mood and action. Unlike Goblin’s heavy rhythms, shrieking vocals, and shrill synthesizers of the previous film, Emerson employs a much more subtle approach, weaving a score out of quiet piano motifs supported by orchestral arrangements, only occasionally reaching into his electronic bag of tricks for a more outre effect. The result comes closer to a conventional piece of film scoring, underlining the on-screen action without drawing as much attention to itself. Continue Reading »

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One of the most memorable elements contributing to the success of SUSPIRIA (1977) was the soundtrack. Combining elements of music (a synthesizer-heavy rock combo) and sound effects (heavy breathing, murmuring voices), Goblin provided something that went far beyond traditional background scoring, to become an integral part of the film. In a fashion somewhat similar to Ennio Morricone’s contribution to Sergio Leone’s Westerns, Goblin helped director Dario Argento achieve an almost operatic effect on screen; their auditory excess was the perfect counterpoint to Argento’s extravagant visuals, transforming a series of horrific set pieces into beautiful arias of violence.  Continue Reading »

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Film music fan Steve Vertlieb - who has been writing about this kind of stuff for as long as I’ve been reading about it - offers his impressions on Max Steiner’s score for the original 1933 KING KONG:

 Some seventy five years ago Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack created the greatest fantasy/adventure motion picture ever devised by the mind of Man, the immortal masterpiece “King Kong.” This modern film interpretation of the “Beauty and the Beast” fable became the most legendary and influential “Monster” movie ever made, and remains the quintessential telling of the now classic tale. In celebration of its poetic, magical allure, having prominently endured three quarters of a century, I’ve been asked by Film Music Review to create a brief remembrance of its powerful score by composer Max Steiner…in what would become, quite literally, the first important film music of the sound era.

You can read what Steve has to say on the subject here.

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Bear McCreary seemingly came out of nowhere to invest the 2004 television reincarnation of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA with a rich and imaginative scoring palette. His music for the cable TV series quickly garnered him assignments on the films REST STOP and WRONG TURN 2. He has continued to score GALACTICA as well as TV’s small town fantasy series, EUREKA and, most recently, the Fox’s new TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. McCreary entered film music through an apprenticeship with composer Elmer Bernstein (GHOSTBUSTERS). “I’ve always loved film music, but it’s probably because I’ve always loved music and I’ve always loved movies, so sort of the obvious mix of the two,” McCreary said. “Ever since I was a kid I was always paying very close attention to the music in movies. Whenever I’d go to movies with my friends, all I’d be talking about afterward was ‘Did you hear that French horn line that Jerry Goldsmith used in that one scene?’ All my friends – well, they didn’t know what I was talking about!” Continue Reading »

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2007 was the year of the magical fantasies. With such high fantasy offerings as STARDUST, MR. MAGORIUM’S MAGICAL EMPORIUM, HARRY POTTER 5, BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, among others, displaying their outlandish landscapes and magic kingdoms, an especially evocative array of memorable film scores came with them. Their scores were more than the predictable magical tonality and style that such films may have called for; each all of these scores was were notable for emphasizing their human poignancy over their elaborate fantasy. These were down to earth scores that captured as much heartfelt interludes as they did majestic crescendos. Continue Reading »

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The Star Tribute alerts us that actor George Takei (Sulu on STAR TREK) has been scheduled to replace Leonard Nimoy as host of an orchestral music program in Minnesota that will include interplanetary excerpts from STAR TREK, STAR WARS, and other outer space movies - not to mention Gustav Holtz’ The Planets:

Takei will appear Friday and Saturday night with the Minnesota Orchestra as part of “To Boldly Go … “, the finale of the ensemble’s Sounds of Cinema film-music series. He replaces the originally scheduled Leonard Nimoy, who had to cancel because he was too busy filming the new “Star Trek” movie, in which he reprises his role as Spock.

[…]

“Music is an organic part of so many science-fiction films,” Takei said. “When you’re boldly going where no one has gone before, that also involves the spirit soaring, and music is the vehicle that transports you there.”

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Mark Isham has concocted one of the most otherworldly, alien, and mist-ifying scores you’ll ever hear for Frank Darabont’s creepy and disturbing adaptation of one of Stephen King’s most inventive novellas, The Mist.

Incorporating sound textures and atonality for a sense of maximum unfamiliarity, Isham’s music eschews melody completely and incorporates a movable stratum of sounds to demarcate the environment within the mist. Isham, who has composed extremely persuasive scores for films like CRASH, BOBBY, THE BLACK DAHLIA, and BLADE, has imbued THE MIST with a powerful sonic ambiance of strangeness that embroiders the rift between dimensions. Continue Reading »

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Is Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” an alternate soundtrack for the climactic Stargate sequence in Kubrick’s science-fiction masterpiece?

By Steve Biodrowski 

By now, almost everyone has heard the urban legend that Pink Floyd’s 1972 progressive rock album DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is a sort of substitute soundtrack for MGM’s classic film THE WIZARD OF OZ. There’s even been talk that Floyd’s follow-up recording, WISH YOU WERE HERE, also synchs up with OZ in interesting ways. But did you know that there is supposedly yet a third unofficial soundtrack attributed to the group? That’s right: according to the Internet Movie Database, “Echoes,” the 23:31 track that takes up all of Side Two on the 1971 album MEDDLE, was intentionally composed and recorded to synchronize with the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” sequence from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

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For the better part of the last quarter century, composer Richard Band has composed quality scores for frequently less than quality science fiction and horror films. While he certainly has made music to some genre classics, like RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND and the cheesy yet entertaining PUPPET MASTER series, Band’s music has also accompanied a cornucopia of reviled genre offerings; even fairly enjoyable films retain the low-budget stigma that has accompanied Band over the course of his career. To his credit, Band has always ignored budgetary stigma and given even the cheesiest of films a high class score. Even a mediocre toxic-zombie invasion film like MUTANT (1984) got a classy orchestral score, performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra; while 1994’s family fantasy film, DRAGONWORLD, was performed by none other than the Royal Philharmonic. The score for 1986’s TROLL featured a complex and innovative chorale composition, while 1991’s THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM featured choir and full orchestra throughout. Band’s music for 1983’s slasher movie, THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, as an elegant and melodic score, rich in tonality and mysterioso, while his music for PUPPET MASTER accomplished the same kind of tonalities for electronics that he did with orchestra, brimming with clever, carnival like tunes that bolstered the films’ tongue-in-cheek sense of theatrics. With his reverently tongue-in-cheek pastiche on Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho music for Stuart Gordon’s RE-ANIMATOR, the composer began a decades-long association with the noted director, scoring FROM BEYOND, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, and CASTLE FREAK. Continue Reading »

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