I, Desire
Released by Dragon’s Domain Records, 2024
23 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 44:03 min.
Music Composed and Conducted by Don Peake

Sometimes it just amazes me what soundtracks get a CD release these days. Here’s a made-for-TV from the early ’80s, that never even had a released on VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray, and yet here we are, talking about a CD release for it. Just amazing. It’s even more impressive because this is an exceptional score.

I remember trying to track down this film on the grey market back in the ’90s because had never shown up on VHS, and because it was a TV-movie about a vampire, starring David Naughton, fresh from An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Brad Dourif, so how could this be not worth seeking out!

It is a fun little tidbit of time, but listening to the score once again, it amazes me just how good it is! With the opening title credits, we have this harpsicord piece that sets it up for almost a period piece, but then once the film starts, it quickly moves to modern day and comes up with a really nice slow and suspenseful part, where you can almost feel like something is lurking in the dark.

There is a bit of jazz throughout the score, with a lot of saxophones setting the mood, but it really does work in the film itself. We have almost a love theme, a lot more suspense, all going in and out giving different moods for each sequence. For a Made-for-TV film, the music is used pretty much throughout the running time. Because there is a lot of time watching characters walking along the streets of Hollywood, the vampire stalking her victims, and the sequences when the main character is questioning his sanity, there is always a piece of music behind it. This is a score well worth listening to on its own, but then watching the film, if you can find a copy, it shows just how much it elevates what we’re seeing onscreen.

Peake had a pretty prolific musical career even before starting to score films. He was part of the studio musicians known as “The Wrecking Crew”! He would go on to score films like The Legend of Bigfoot (1975), Delusion (1981), The Prey (1983), and even Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and The People Under the Stairs (1991).