If you sometimes think you're on drugs when you hear
James Horner use his same material over and over again in countless
scores (the ultimate doped up deja vu?), now you get to hear Horner do
his best imitation of taking a little snort himself. His rather short
contribution to the film features music that takes a dash of Danny
Elfman, a touch of John Ottman, and a snippet of Thomas Newman, and
provides a distinctly unique, though not necessarily sane recipe.
Bashers of Horner's repetitions will have a very hard time chewing on
this one, for Horner and his few trusty cohorts have produced a
small-scale score for piano, guitar, and synthesizer that wouldn't be
recognizable as a Horner work to even his most hardy collectors. Music
for satires like this require a devilish design, and that's something
that Horner doesn't accomplish on the merits of his own writing, but he
does accomplish it simply because the music is so different from his
other works. A simplistic theme constructed from four chord progressions
repeats endlessly in its performances, separated by wild tangents with
rhythms obviously aimed at the openly comedic scenes, and one
outrageously funny and truly awful cue for the title character. The tone
of the score is subdued in its lack of density --a total and complete
opposite of the concurrent
Flightplan-- and rolls gently along in
the same daze as scores like
Holy Smoke! and
One Hour
Photo. These rhythms often consist of a meandering synth sound
design, an acoustic guitar, and piano, and to its benefit, Horner
mirrors the drug-induced pleasures with a constantly harmonious and
pleasant tone... and a very eerie one at that.
The "Dolphins" and "Digging Montage" cues are straight
from a new age album meant to put you asleep, and that's why the more
extroverted cues will catch your attention off the bat. Almost
Italian-style rhythms with faux-clarinet melodies occupy three cues, and
in "Pot Casserole" and "A Confluence of Families," you hear Horner do
his most genuine imitation of Danny Elfman's subtle, tragic cues for
Corpse Bride or
The Nightmare Before Christmas, complete
with a longing piano and music box effect. The most awkward cue is
"Parental Rift/The Chumscrubber," the latter of which demands a lengthy,
chaotic theme for electric guitar, heavy bass rhythms, and a wickedly
perverse attitude. The wailing sirens in the distance make this a
perfect cue for late night broadcasts out your apartment windows. The
score ends without ceremony, and begs the obvious question about the
motives behind the music. On its own, it is quite pretty in sections
(making a good anthem for the suburbia portrayed on screen), and it has
a few hilarious individual cues. But the comedic rhythms are handled
with a far sharper touch by other composers, and you have to wonder if
something a little more dense (even in the same instrumentation) would
have given the score a more believable intensity. In other words, the
score for
The Chumscrubber doesn't prove Horner's capability in
the drug genre, although you certainly have to admire him for trying.
The album contains about 35 minutes of his score and five songs that
really do play better to the genre. That cue for the video game
character is not to be missed; who says Horner doesn't have a sense of
humor? Perhaps this is evidence that the man has a quality parody score
in his blood, ready to be unleashed someday...
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