Category Archives: Reviews: Soundtrack

Soundtrack Review: Soundtrack for An Anonymous Horror Movie

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Soundtrack For An Anonymous Horror Movie
Published by Bucks Music Group
14 Tracks with a Total Running Time: 39 min
Music Composed by Richard G. Mitchell

I first became aware of composer Richard Mitchell when I saw the film Caveat, directed by Damian McCarty. Because I enjoyed the movie so much, I purchased the soundtrack that Mitchell had created. When I did my review for it, I wrote “like the film itself, the music burrows into your psyche, adding to the strangeness you are watching on screen, enhancing the images, the feelings, and most of all, the uneasiness it is creating within you.” When McCarty’s next movie came out, Oddity, I was just as excited to see if it was as good as his first film, which it was. The score was once again by Mitchell, but for some reason, there wasn’t any release of the official score.

Until now. Well, sort of.

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Double Dose of Frankenstein Soundtrack?

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Even before the movie came out, because I was so excited about it, when Alexadra Desplat’s soundtrack became available on Amazon in a digital format, I bought it. It had 37 tracks with a running time of about 105 minutes. Granted, for a movie almost 2 1/2 hours long, and being del Toro, you know it’s going to have a big score. That is the artwork on the left below.

But about a week ago, I saw they were releasing the actual CD soundtrack, put out by AEC, (pictured on the right below) but even though it is a 2-disc release, it does not have the whole score that I originally purchased on Amazon. This version only has 29 tracks, but it doesn’t list the complete running time, but it looks like it’s about 15 minutes shorter. Not sure why they would do that, but there you have it. If you want the longer score, the digital format might be the only way. They are both showing available on Amazon.

Soundtrack Review: Dark Touch

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Dark Touch
Released by Tricatel, 2013
18 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 43 min.
Original Music by Christophe Chassol

It didn’t take but a few minutes into the movie for this score to get my attention. Right from the very beginning, we hear this haunting piano tune, which will always get my attention. But it continues on, drawing the listener in even more. The sound of the piano almost has a slight distortion, or like weird vibration to the notes, which gives it even more of an eerie sound to it. And right at that moment, I knew I had to look for this score after the film was done. Which is exactly what I did, and why we are here now!

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Soundtrack Review: Vicious

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Vicious
Released by Lakeshore Records
32 Tracks with a Total Running Time: 46 min.
Music by Tom Schraeder

In 2020, I saw Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and the Wicked, where that title really fit the film. Very dark and brooding and doesn’t leave you all warm and fuzzy. The score was from by Tom Schraeder, which helped moved the emotions of the story along, making the visuals even more powerful and impactful. And now with Vicious, both Bertino and Schraeder have done it again.

Once again, Schraeder has created a soundscape that enhances not what we’re seeing on screen but what we’re feeling. There is a difference there. In his score for Dark, it oozes that feeling of dread and of no escape. In Vicious, what we get is sounds that increase the tension and terror that we’re feeling as we watch poor Polly and what she’s going through. Right off the bat with Track 1, Spiral, we have strings going quickly back and forth in a face pace, with a background sound getting louder and building. That really starts us in the direction we’re heading.

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Soundtrack Review: Texas Chain Saw Massacre

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Released by Waxwork Records, 2025
14 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 40 min.
Composed and performed by Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell

I have quite a few soundtracks that are not what most would call “music” but just ambiance sounds, rather than a melody or any type of music. They can range from vibrating elements to loud and quick bangs or clanking, to just different notes being played for a long time to build up that uneasy feeling it might cause, or any kind of feeling. Some of these are highly effective, especially when viewed with the actual film they are from. A lot of the times, you never even notice it because it is so subdued, it is almost like white noise but can help get under your skin. Listening to them by themselves though, sometimes can lose the impact it has as the film score.

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Soundtrack Review: The Sender

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The Sender (1982)
Released by La-La Land Records, 2011
12 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 38:17 min.
Music Composed by Trevor Jones

The Sender was a film we stumbled across at the video store, thinking it looked pretty interesting. Not only was it pretty damn good movie, but it also has a great cast of Kathryn Harrold, Shirley Knight, and Zeljko Ivanek in his first starring role. It has remained not only a personal favorite, but one that I think is highly underrated. Then years ago, when I saw that La-La Land was releasing the score, I immediately ordered a copy. It made me realize that one of the reasons the film is so effective is this incredibly somber score from Trevor Jones.

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Soundtrack Review: The Sweet House of Horrors

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The Sweet House of Horrors
Released by Cauldon Films, 2024
20 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 66 min.
Music by Vince Tempera

I’ll say right off the top that this later day, made-for-TV movie that Fulci directed has never been one of my favorites. Of course, that didn’t stop me from buying the House of Doom set that Cauldron Films put out, that featured this film, along with Fulci’s The House of Clocks, and Umberto Lenzi’s The House of Lost Souls and The House of Witchcraft. But the set also had the soundtracks for Sweet House and The House of Clocks, both by composer Vince Tempera. None the less, I picked it up. I’m a sucker for soundtracks, especially for titles that I never thought would ever get a release. So, a huge thanks to Cauldron Films for making that happen.

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The Music of Nosferatu

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With the release of Robert Egger’s remake of Nosferatu, it hit me on the number of different soundtracks for this film title there are. And of course, being a crazy horror film soundtrack collector, I already had quite a few of them! But it amazed me how many different scores there are for this series.

Hans Erdmann (pictured to the right) had composed the music for the original 1922 film. This is when the music was played live during the screenings, which for some theaters, due to their size, made it difficult. Many times, completely different music, often classical pieces, was played on either an organ or a much smaller orchestra, depending on the size of the theater. Unfortunately, much of Erdmann’s original music is now lost so we’re never going to know what that score would have sounded like.

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Soundtrack Review: When Evil Lurks

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When Evil Lurks
14 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 51:55
Music by Pablo Fuu

Being a huge fan of Demián Rugna’s film Terrified (2017), I was very excited to see this new one when it briefly hit the theaters last year. Wow. Hadn’t been hit by a film like this one in quite a long time.

One of the reasons this film is so effective is the music created by Pablo Fuu. It seems as of now, the only way to get it is a digital download, but hopefully there will be an actually physical release of it. In the meantime, here’s our thoughts on the score.

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Soundtrack Review: I, Desire

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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!

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