Opening with a gentle,
melancholy piano theme, the music soon moves into rather
marvellously evocative string writing in De Profundis. The piano
theme isn't memorable in any way really, but does appear several
times in the score, so that at least, unlike Devil's
Advocate there is a more cohesive feel to the score.
This is certainly atmosphere music, but with some above average
invention, orchestration and above tuneful. While not quite being
up to Herrmann levels of composing, it is a far cry from the kind
of themeless synth junk that passes for moody and atmospheric so
often these days. There do appear to be hints of a synthesiser,
but I'm not entirely sure sometimes and can't help thinking that
some of these sections are just clever orchestrations. Suicide
Ghost seems to feature one of the special synthsisers that Jerry
Goldsmith used in Poltergeist; kind of a metallic
chime. The eerie ending to De Profundis is a notable occurrence
which seems to have a high pitch synth, but is most likely a
clever combination of strings and high woodwinds. The addition of
a choir or synth choir (both of which are used appropriately and
sparingly) always helps any horror score, although this is more
gentle than Jerry Goldsmith's demonic efforts. A slightly more
obscure connection were bits that reminded me of some of John
Barry's harmonies in his classic score to Body Heat;
faintly erotic, but a great deal more spooky and edgy. The final cue is almost certainly
the most interesting of the disc and contains some more melodic
and less atmospheric music. There were a couple of points which
reminded me of Cliff Eidelman's stirring Overture to Star
Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country with some more
forthright string passages. Like so many scores, Howard keeps it
generally low key until the last when a bit more emotion and
drama can be introduced. While a lot of people haven't given this
score much thought on disc, I felt it was one of Howard's better
efforts and while it doesn't exactly break much new ground, it is an affective and listenable psychological horror. After some of the
screeching that composers use to frighten us, it's refreshing to
composers other than Jerry Goldsmith can write musical,
yet eerie scores to set our nerves on edge. Rating ~ Total Time ~ 30:19Greeted with pretty unanimous and
enthusiastic praise in the film, this score has been the centre
point along with The Blair Witch Project which
was to do with the relative merits of music in horror films.
Whereas this was praised for its use, Blair Witch
was praised for its none use of music. I have seen neither film
and so can only comment on the effectiveness of Newton Howard's
score on disc. As a slightly more low key follow up to his
melodramatic, yet often stylish effort to Devil's
Advocate, it certainly doesn't come across badly. As
this is more psychological horror than in your face action
horror, then the score is more like cod Herrmann than anything
along the lines of The Omen or Hellraiser.
