THEMES OF HORROR
VARIOUS
Rating: NO STARS
Original Review: You know sometimes, when you buy a CD, you listen to it and you wish you hadn't bothered. I spent all of £4 on this piece of trash and, I'll tell you, it wasn't even worth that. If this had been a Silva Screen re-recording with the City of Prague Philharmonic, a proper conductor and a full orchestra, this could have been a pretty decent recording. Most of the music itself is excellent - some of Hollywood's most eminent composers lend their talents to this CD, including Howard Shore, Ennio Morricone and Bernard Herrmann, and there are a couple of noteworthy tracks included, like Pino Donaggio's attractive theme from Carrie, Krzysztof Komeda's theme from Rosemary's Baby, Lalo Schifrin's The Amityville Horror and Joe Renzetti's soft rock melody from Poltergeist III. However, instead of being played properly, by an orchestra, the CD sounds as though it was performed in someone's bedroom by someone with a second hand keyboard. It's awful. Horribly, terribly, awful. I think they spent more money on the artwork than the music. The only tracks that sound like anything approaching decent are the aforementioned Carrie, and ones that were synthesised in the first place - like Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells from The Exorcist and John Carpenter's The Fog and Halloween, but even the latter of those is ruined by the inexplicable inclusion of "Mr. Sandman Bring Me A Dream". The renditions of Bernard Herrmann's classic scores Psycho and Vertigo are nothing short of sacrilegious, Howard Shore's Silence of the Lambs is completely unrecognisable, and they couldn't even be bothered to play Christopher Young's proper theme from Hellraiser, instead using the rock song that plays over the end credits. If anyone reading this ever needs any extra coasters, for a dinner party or suchlike, please do drop me a line and I'd be happy to send you this CD to use. Themes of Horror? I couldn't have put it better myself.
Track Listing:
- The Fly (Howard Shore) (3:56)
- The Thing (Ennio Morricone) (6:38)
- The Fog (John Carpenter) (3:04)
- Carrie (Pino Donaggio) (2:51)
- Psycho (Bernard Herrmann) (3:33)
- Poltergeist III (Joe Renzetti) (3:24)
- The Exorcist (Mike Oldfield) (4:04)
- Hellraiser (song) (3:34)
- Halloween (John Carpenter) (4:59)
- The Amityville Horror (Lalo Schifrin) (4:35)
- Friday the 13th (Harry Manfredini) (3:28)
- Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann) (3:42)
- The Silence of the Lambs (Howard Shore) (2:47)
- Rosemary's Baby (Krzyzstof Komeda) (2:29)
Running Time: 53 minutes 11 seconds
Emporio EMPRCD-628 (1995)
Music performed by Some Guy With A Crappy Synthesiser. Album produced by Gordon Lorenz.
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These web pages were designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton copyright 1998. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those of my employer, the Trent Institute for Health Services Research, or those of the University of Sheffield.