I mean no insult when I say that with a Marc Shaiman score, you're pretty sure you know what you'll get. Probably some combination of highly attractive, usually lush melodic material, a sprinkling of more comedic interludes and a finale cue likely to set even those with a granite heart into a sobbing mess. Obviously, a career dominated toward sentiment and comedy must have been started with a terrifying psychological thriller about a writer and his obsessed number one fan. It's funny how things turn out. Had Misery been made in the 1960's it seems likely that it would have been directed by Alfred Hitchcock and scored by Bernard Herrmann, it just seems ideally suited to both director and composer, but if it was made today with a restrospective look at Shaiman's other scores, do you think anyone would have asked him? I doubt it - Howard Shore perhaps - and that would indeed have been a great shame since it's a hugely impressive debut.
The opening cue does start off as something of a red herring with a lyrical theme for piano and strings; not the instantly identifiable typical Shaiman style perhaps, but a more subdued effort and certainly one that has a much more sour edge than most things he's written subsequently. The tranquillity soon desolves away into greater tension which stays with the score throughout. Shaiman uses long harmonic lines against the occasional outburst to keep piling on tension and drawing out the agony; as should be the case given the subject matter of the film. A little dose of Stravinsky style chopping strings make their way into Open House which makes the danger seem more immediate. This idea is carried further in Go To Your Room which features some racing string figures and off kilter piano and woodwind counterpoint together with occasional percussion and brass hits.
As a debut score it's about as impressive as they come (perhaps only Doyle's magnificent Henry V could top it in relatives terms), but as a Shaiman score it shows a generally untapped side to his composing talent. Quite how he could have become type cast in almost completely the opposite type of film is something of a mystery, but it does make one hope that perhaps directors and producers could see a little further than the last score written by a composer. Of course Shaiman has scored several other dramas (most notably Ghosts of Mississippi), but that is the exception rather than the rule, a shame really.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 29:49