The Creature Wasn’t Nice
© N/A
Fish Heads, Fish Heads
By: Randall LarsonDate: Thursday, April 12, 2007
THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDATIONS
Sweden’s new film label, Fin de Siècle Media, has released a real treasure of late 70’s Eurohorror film music – Luciano Michelini’s provocative score for L’Isola Degli Uomini Pesce (The Island of the Fishmen, aka Screamers, aka Something Waits in the Dark aka UK Island of the Mutations.) This 1979 film was directed by veteran giallo maestro Sergio Martino (The Great Alligator, Slave of the Cannibal God, All the Colors of the Dark, Case of the Scorpion’s Tail) and had to do with a group of prisoners and their doctor shipwrecked on a strange Caribbean island infested with fishlike creatures. Starring Barbara Bach, Claudio Cassinelli, Richard Johnson, and Beryl Cunningham, and featuring Joseph Cotton in one of his last feature film appearances, the film has a respectable cast, passable effects, but a typically hokey 1970s screenplay that drew inspiration from everything from Island of Lost Souls to The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Mysterious Island, not to mention inspiring Roger Corman (who reworked the Italian version and released it as Screamers and had a new musical score, by Sandy Berman, put onto the film) to come out with Humanoids of the Deep the following year. Whatever the film’s merits (or lack thereof) in the eye of the beholder, the beholder’s ear will surely recognize the musical score as one of the best and loveliest horror scores of the Eurohorror 1970s trend. Michelini unfortunately only scored barely a dozen films in the two decades between 1972 and 1994, mostly forgettable programmers like Chopper Squad and Secrets of a Call Girl) (his track, “Frolic,” made some headway when it appeared in the soundtrack of the 2000 film, Curb Your Enthusiasm), but his score for this programmer ranks as one of the prettiest horror scores of the decade. It features a surging, nicely aquatic main theme, a warmly melodic and rhythmic cue that nicely reflects the surging waves of the Caribbean, while more modern tracks like “Palude” provide a disturbing rhythm for the fishmen, with jungle drums, loud ratchet, and a thick, fuzzy electric guitar twang. “L’Agguato” likewise features a stridently harsh electric guitar (reminiscent slightly in its tonality of one of the action cues in Morricone’s Citta’ Violenta) over rapidly working stabs of violins, opening into shouting bursts of trumpets and winds as the cue escalates to an urgent crescendo. In “Il Laboratorio Sotterreaneo” Michelini adds a contrasting electronic sonar-like ping as an irregular counterpoint to the pretty cadence of his main theme, giving it a disturbing and chaotic tonality along with a violin mysterioso that plays above the melody. “Cosa Resta Dell’Amore” is a gorgeous, lyrical love theme, passionately performed on piano over strings, really a standout theme among Eurohorror romantic melodies (of which there are many). It is introduced on track 2 and is reprised at the CD’s conclusion. “Fuga Tra Glui Alberi” is a classically styled fugue, richly and Gothically orchestral. The CD is packaged in a tri-fold keep case (always vastly preferred over jewel cases) and includes brief notes by John Mansell and some cool color pix from the film. Fin de Siècle’s next release, slated for April 30th, will be Nora Orlandi’s score to the 1968 giallo, Il dolce corpo di Deborah (The Adorable Corpse of Deborah, aka The Body, aka The Sweet Body of Deborah).
Composer’s official site (Italian language): www.lucianomichelini.it
David Spear is a talented composer who hasn’t had the opportunity to score as many large-scaled pictures as his abilities deserve. He assisted director Frank LaLoggia in realizing the director’s musical ambitions when he composed the score for his 1981 horror thriller, Fear No Evil, and he composed excellent scores for two short fantasy films (The Academy Award-nominated Rainbow War, Spirit Lodge) and a marvelous documentary about British Columbia for the 1986 World’s Fair in Vancouver. He scored other exhibition films for NASA’s Space Center Houston and wrote the music for a series of educational videos about Dinosaurs for Midwich Entertainment in the mid 1980s. He also served as an orchestrator for Elmer Bernstein (Airplane!, Heavy Metal, Ghostbusters, Animal House, etc.) and others. While Rainbow War and the Our British Columbia scores were issued on LP to coincide with Expo ’86, and the Dinosaurs was released in a fine LP and CD soundtrack from Cerberus in 1983, Spear is otherwise absent from soundtrack releases, which makes the availability of his music from 1983’s sci-fi spoof The Creature Wasn’t Nice from BSX records especially appreciated. The film may not be the legendary classic soundtrack everyone has been waiting for, but it’s a first-rate composition that gives Spear the opportunity to show his orchestral chops in a fairly broad manner. The movie starred Leslie Nielsen (which led to its video release aka, Naked Space, tying in with Nielsen’s The Naked Gun movies of the ‘90s; also appearing in the film are Cindy Williams, Gerrit Graham and Patrick Macnee) as Captain Jameson of the spaceship Vertigo, whose crew explores a previously unknown planet and brings a mysterious ooze back to earth. The ooze grows into the Creature, who can only communicate by singing in a Vegas style lounge act, opening the door to all sorts of comic vocal antics. Three satirical and rather cute songs written by writer/director Bruce Kimmel are present on the disc, including several demo and karaoke versions, but the majority of the CD is devoted to Spear’s orchestral score, which plays it very straight and provides thoroughly orchestrated Planets-like music giving the film its energetic strength. There are a couple of satirical compositions and show tunes for specific set pieces in Las Vegas (Spear’s End Credits music is wonderful in this regard) or comedic source music, like “Cooking With John” (which is a terrific satire – a faux TV theme song for a typical sappy cooking show), but for the most part the score is straight ahead action adventure scoring, first rate composition and very welcome on disc. Spear’s experience orchestrating for Elmer Bernstein has let to a lot of Bernstein’s influence evident in his main theme and action scoring, and the music captures a welcome hint of Bernstein flavor throughout the score. If you like Bernstein’s scores for Ghostbusters, Spacehunter, Saturn 3 and the like, you will enjoy Spear’s terrific music for The Creature Wasn’t Nice.
The CD is limited to only 1,000 copies, and the package includes extensive notes by Bruce Kimmel thoroughly describing his adventures in creating and making this film – and his horror at seeing what the distributor did to his final cut (Kimmel notes that a special edition DVD is forthcoming that restores his intentions for the film in its original director’s cut).
John Frizzell’s score for The Reaping, which opened last week, has been released on CD by Varese Sarabande. Hillary Swank stars as a former Christian missionary who abandoned her faith and now specializes in debunking religious phenomena, who journeys to a small Southern town that seems to be suffering from the 10 biblical plagues. The score is an exceptional horror score, contrasting intricate filigrees of suspense and somberness with broadly stated orchestral strokes that capture the character’s reawakening to the power of god – or something like god. A couple of pretty environmental tracks (“The Incident in Chile,” “The Call from Costigan” set the stage and allow the score to develop a straightforward yet elaborate orchestral texture, lots of small figures and hidden textures reflecting off of one another. “River of Blood” opens up with a huge crescendo, heavy with power and awe. “Plague of Flies” is at once massively dissonant and then massively powerful, again maintaining the score’s slowly-awakening sense of awe at things seemingly inconceivable occurring in reality. Frizzell’s textural atmospheres are very effective also, capturing some evocative sounds. In “Katherine’s Faith,” for example, sinewy sustained strings arc across the track, accentuated by a buzzing, insectile percussive effect, and then muted chorus elements reverberate amidst a floating sea of sonic texture; out of this muted cacophony emerges briefly a very tender and pretty violin melody – the vestiges of Katherine’s forgotten faith seeking reacquaintance, or redemption? In “Katherine Reaches for Lauren” the same lyrical measures from the strings resound warmly, given a heightened dynamic through a harsh ascent of choir, and then all hope is swallowed up as the music (and Lauren?) is overpowered by the dissonant drumming and incoming tendrils of brooding, hopeless ambience. “Katherine Believes/Costigan Burns” and “The Sacrifice Room” again pair up the musical notion of faith facing fire, good facing evil, hope facing horror, as Frizzell balances fragile piano figures against severe chord progressions of full orchestra and choir, hushed whispered reflections, and massive instrumental textures. The plague moments are suitably raging and dissonant – “Flowing Blood,” “Locusts,” “Plague of Flies” – furious with orchestra and choir, surging and flailing in harmonic conflagration. “God Intervenes” and “The Boy” provide the final reckoning between the score’s divergent aspects in a spectacular cluster of choir and orchestra, resolving itself in a huge declaration from enormous orchestral strokes the resound mightily; then dissolve into the quiet piano filigrees that opened the score. The CD is concluded by a kind of techno remix called “The Reaping Title Sequence” wherein Frizzell’s main motives are reprises under a harsh industrial beat. Typically, there are no notes on the album, but the trifold booklet does credit each of the orchestra players and choir singers by name, which is always nice.
Digitmovies recent release of Stelvio Cipriani’s complete original motion picture score for Riccardo Fredda’s 1971 giallo L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire) has preserved and restored another wonderful example of outstanding Italian horror film scoring of the early 1970s. Cipriani was hugely prolific during the 1970s, scoring hundreds of Westerns, dramas, suspense thrillers, and horror films like Alligator, Twitch of the Death Nerve, and Baron Blood), usually with a strong sense of popular melody. His score for Iguana, rescued from the CAM archives and remastered from the original preserved master tapes, is based on a romantic main theme introduced in the Main Titles and reprised with variations including a semi pop-flavored version using harpsichord, piano, guitar and female voice. The score’s darker moments are provided through a series of macabre and suspense themes in various measures, including several variations of “Intrusione,” a somber yet pretty rhythmic piece for flutes and violins over piano, bass, and a repetitious harp figure (this harp motive becomes an ostinato of madness, reprised in “Nuovo Delitto” where it is accentuated by harsh intonations of violins and echoed bongo drums). “Lingua Di Fuoco” contains some splendid reverberated stingers, like the razored tongue of a vicious reptile whipping out to ensnare the listener in a warm, sticky, deadly embrace. Singer Nora Orlandi (herself a composer for the occasional giallo – see above) provides the singer’s voice for tracks like “Night Club” as well as under the orchestra in the main title and its variations. The soft flutes and keyboards of “Incontro” provide a charming respite from the score’s fiercer moments, like the vicious cyclonic pursuit of violins, voice, and percussion in “Interrogatorio” or the rapid cadence of the repeated stabs of violins in its variation, “Interrogatorio, versione 2.” “Tema D’Amore” is the film’s love theme, a very pretty melody for concerto-styled piano over strings and winds, enhanced by Orlandi’s sweet voice. The final confrontation between would-be victim and assailant is nicely reflected in both “Aggressione Notturna” and “Lotta & Morte Dell’Assassino,” where Cipriani’s strings and harp and harpsichord square off and battle it out with fierce rhythm and harmony. The former remains fairly furtive in its movement until bongos unleash a furious cadence that drives the discordant violins and piping winds and fuzzy-toned electric guitar into a rapid frenzy; the latter reprises the harp ostinato heard earlier along with the steady thrum of the electric guitar, and then the bongos once more prompt a stampede of cacophonous rapidity. Reassuring us after all that, Orlandi’s vocals provide a wonderful dynamic for the Finale, where they move to the forefront and play against harpsichord and strings over percussion in a fitting romantic denouement for the film and nicely conclude the score with a lyrical and cheerful vitality. Like most giallo films, the contrast between gorgeous photography and savage, graphic violence and gore is mirrored in the beauty of the film scores, which often capture some of the decade’s prettiest melodies, and L’iguana
is an excellent example of this.
Hercules in the Haunted World © 
The CD includes as a bonus track the Intermission music that played between the movie’s first and second parts in its original theatrical run. Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas, a Mario Bava expert, provides informative liner notes about the film and its score. “It may not be readily apparent to the general viewer, but a film such as this makes extraordinary demands on a film composer,” Lucas writes. “The score needs to be not only natural but supernatural, arcane and mysterious as well as heroic, interior as well as exterior.” Trovajoli, one of Italy’s strongest and most dynamic composers of the 1960s and 70s, provided a major composition for Hercules in the Haunted World which is very nicely preserved and restored in this premier recording.
See below for Digitmovies roster of April specialty releases.
FILM MUSIC NEWS
As part of the double horror feature, Grindhouse, directors Tarantino and Rodriguez contracted a group of directors to create trailers for fictitious movies that will play between the two features. One such trailer is Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the S.S., which features Nicolas Cage and music by Tyler Bates. Incidentally, Bates will also be heard just before the Grindhouse feature begins, with a real trailer for the Rob Zombie written and directed Halloween remake, whose teaser trailer features Tyler Bates’ recreation of John Carpenter’s classic Halloween theme. Of Bate’s take on Carpenter, Fangoria has commented, “Spooky haunted-house ambiance. Female gasps of terror. Yep, this is definitely a Halloween theme done Rob Zombie-style.” In addition to the August release of Halloween, Bates’ upcoming projects include Day Of The Dead directed by Halloween alum Steve Miner, and Warner Bros.’ Watchmen directed by Zack Snyder (300) .
Composer George S. Clinton will receive the prestigious Richard Kirk Award for outstanding career achievement at the performing rights organization's Film & Television Awards to be held on Wednesday, May 16 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. The black-tie, invitation-only dinner will also honor the composers of the past year's top-grossing films, top-rated prime-time network television series and highest-ranking cable network programs. Bestowed annually on a composer who has made significant contributions to the realm of film and television music, the Richard Kirk Award is named after past BMI Vice President Richard Kirk. George S. Clinton's versatility and sheer musical prowess have placed the Grammy-nominated maestro in the upper-echelon of Hollywood composers. The recipient of six BMI awards and composer for a myriad of films, Clinton's scores have lent depth to thrillers including Mortal Kombat and Wild Things; supplied deft timing to comedic smashes Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and its two sequels; and helped paint poignant moments in Joe Somebody, quirky moods in 3,000 Miles to Graceland and foreboding atmospheres in The Astronaut's Wife. As the 2007 honoree, George S. Clinton enters an ambit of elite colleagues including composers Henry Gregson-Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry, Thomas Newman, Michael Kamen, Mark Mothersbaugh, Danny Elfman, Alan Menken, Mike Post, Lalo Schifrin and John Williams.
Silva Screen latest pair of Film Music Masterworks releases are devoted to Elmer Bernstein and Bernard Herrmann, featuring newly performed material (City of Prague Philharmonic, the label’s usual and excellent recording orchestra) from previous Silva compilations. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before but it nicely assembled into these notable single composer-focused releases. Film Music by Bernard Herrmann includes selections from all of the composer’s most famous works (Psycho, Jason, Sinbad, Kane, Muir, Vertigo, Taxi Driver, and so on) while Film Music by Elmer Bernstein contains works from the composer’s typically-compiled material (Magnificent Seven, Great Escape, True Grit, To Kill a Mockingbird) but also includes less-available material from Ghostbusters and Airplane! www.silvascreenmusic.com
Italy’s prolific Digitmovies have announced their April releases, which includes the premiere soundtrack release of Bruno Nicolai’s complete original motion picture soundtrack for the spy movie Missione Speciale Lady Chaplin (aka ”Operation Lady Chaplin”) directed in 1966 by Alberto De Martino, starring Daniela Bianchi (the Bond Girl in From Russia with Love) and Ken Clark. Also due out on April 26th is the label’s fifth volume dedicated to Italian Giallo movies scored by Ennio Morricone: Uccidete il vitello grasso e arrostitelo (aka „Kill the Fatted Calf”) directed in 1969 by Salvatore Samperi and starring Jean Sorel, Marilù Tolo and Maurizio Degli Esposti. This CD project was made from the 1969 original stereo session tapes. Joining these two fine projects is Franco Micalizzi’s complete original score for La banda del gobbo (aka Brother till we die), a 1977 police action film starring Tomas Milian who plays a dual role in the film, and Francesco De Masi’s Western score for Per un pugno nell’occhio, a delicious parody of Sergio Leone’s classic A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Michele Lupo and starring comedy actors Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia.. It is the very first time that this music appears on CD.
Composer Mark Isham had a rather impressive and varied roster in 2006, and 2007 is off to a similar start. His next film will hit theaters on April 27th, and is the action thriller Next, directed by Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day). SoundtrackNet has posted a first listen exclusive of Lakeshore’s upcoming soundtrack release (due April 24th) for this dramatic thriller, with clips from every track. See: http://www.soundtrack.net
FILM MUSIC IN CONCERT
The Colorado Symphony Orchestra (CSO) will premiere award-winning composer Harry Gregson-Williams' "Grand Orchestral Suite" from the critically acclaimed The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, orchestrated and conducted by the composer, on Friday, May 18, 2007 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 19, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. at Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver. Gregson-Williams received Grammy and Golden Globe Award nominations for his original score to The Chronicles of Narnia. The concert will include images from the blockbuster movie.
Gregson-Williams' impressive body of work includes more than 40 film scores, displaying his range and versatility through a wide variety of genres. He most recently wrote the music for the highly anticipated animated film Shrek The Third, being released nationwide on May 18. His other credits include Ridley Scott's epic Kingdom of Heaven, Shrek and Shrek 2, Tony Scott's Man on Fire, Spy Game, Enemy of the State, Domino and Déjà vu, and the upcoming Gone, Baby, Gone which marks Ben Affleck's directorial debut. Gregson-Williams will also be composing the music for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, being released in 2008.
The CSO performance features The Choir from Cherry Hills Community Church and images from the film presented along with the music. Audiences will also enjoy costumes from the film on display in the lobby of Boettcher Concert Hall. The first half of the program includes more music from award-winning movies, plus a salute to the film music of Danny Elfman, including Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - and more!
"The CSO is honored to have been chosen to premiere this piece," CSO Executive Vice President Gene Sobczak said. "A composer with such world-renowned praise bringing his newest masterpiece to the Colorado Symphony is a big feather in Denver's cap. This opportunity strengthens the idea that the CSO continues to emerge as one of the top orchestras in the country."
FILM MUSIC ON DVD
Noted for their brooding ghostly horror films like Bangkok Haunted and The Eye and its sequels, The Pang Brothers turned to a slightly different premise with Re-Cycle (aka Gwai wik, a Hong Kong-Thai co-production), a visually stunning and intriguing Asian ghost film that takes an abrupt left turn into high fantasy as the protagonist finds herself transported to surreal otherworld where all the things she abandoned in her life continue to reside (recycled). While this intriguing concept is not explored as sufficiently as might have been, Re-Cycle is an admirable and stylish fresh take on Asian horror, aided by superior CGI effects and an excellent film score by Thai composer Payont Permsith, who makes the most with a studio full of samples and synths. As far as I can tell the score has not been issued on a soundtrack CD – however the nicely packaged 2-disc Director’s Cut DVD edition of the movie from Hong Kong contains what appears to be the entire score (55 tracks) playable as a separate audio element of the second disc of the DVD (however both discs are Region-3 encoded, so you must have a Region-3 or Region free DVD player or a computer capable of playing non region-1 discs). The 55 tracks on the DVD segment average a minute or two in length, so we have about an hour or more worth of score here. Primarily a synth and keyboard score, the music of Re-Cycle is an effectively moody and persuasive rendering. A variety of spooky synth echoes and stingers and ambient textures convey various moments of fright, anticipation, and shock in earlier scenes when Re-Cycle is proceeding along conventional Asian ghost story lines. Once the film has become something far more surreal than the typical Grudge-type ghost story, the score becomes much more dissonant and unnerving, built around a variety of rhythmic- and texture-based riffs, with a very strident heroic main theme that propels the story forward, and the use of some very nice sampled choral voicings that convey much of the film’s emotional sensibility. It’s a very nice score . With the DVD set available at around $25 via several online Asian DVD sources (google: Re-Cycle), it’s not a bad price for the movie and the soundtrack together, if you have the capability of playing it.
Recommended Soundtrack sources:
www.arksquare.com/index_main
www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)
www.moviemusic.com
