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| Elfman |
Goosebumps: (Danny Elfman) The task of scaring
children has brought fame to author R.L. Stine, whose series of young
horror novellas has earned the "Goodebumps" concept over 350 million
books sold and several entries on bestseller lists. The young characters
at the heart of Stine's world continuously find themselves enveloped
into the thrilling but often funny world of monsters unleashed from the
books they encounter, yielding countless spin-offs through the decades
since 1992 and featuring creative new monsters and unusual environments
with each adventure. The idea of translating the concept to the big
screen originated in the 1990's with appropriately monster-obsessed
director Tim Burton reportedly attached. Through countless screenplay
disagreements and seemingly endless lawsuits over the rights to the
topic, a film for
Goosebumps took until 2015 to finally
materialize, starring comedian Jack Black as Stine himself. In the
movie, his books are explored by young family and friends who
unintentionally release a number of monsters from the author's books
into the real world, requiring them to wrestle the beasts back into
their proper places before television news outlets set up shop in their
town to sensationalize the downfall of society. It's unfortunate the
ghosts and monsters couldn't have been contained to a super-Walmart
where they could feast on its hapless shoppers. Critical response to
Goosebumps was positive and the project earned enough at the box
office to generate early talk from Sony about a sequel, but it was
hardly a blockbuster success as expected. While the finished product
didn't feature much star power in its production team and cast, one nice
addition to the crew was Danny Elfman, perhaps the composer best suited
for a humorous monster mash of this proportion. The film did place a
number of source songs throughout, but Elfman's wacky orchestral score
is exactly as one would expect to carry over from his very early
carnival-like tendencies. Though a score like
Alice in Wonderland
shows that the composer's children's genre style has matured since
projects such as
Face Like a Frog and other totally silly music
from the 1980's,
Goosebumps is a completely unrestrained reprisal
of Elfman's most bizarre tones of his initial recordings, from
Pee
Wee's Big Adventure and
Big Top Pee Wee to
Beetlejuice
and
Face like a Frog. If you miss Elfman's capability to produce
frenetic circus music with an arguably psychedelic tilt,
Goosebumps gives you a genuinely amusing nostalgic moment.
The orchestral ensemble is taxed and embellished in
much the same way you remember from the composer's early days of
wackiness, the composer's knack for ripping through harmonically
incongruous, stomping chords of demented character still unmatched in
the industry. Anyone who thought 2012's
Dark Shadows was the
closest Elfman would return to this realm was mistaken, and it could be
said that
Goosebumps suffers as a listening experience compared
to
Dark Shadows as a result. The instrumentation is the same,
with a regularly-sized orchestra joined by a few token accents like a
theremin, choir, and occasional woodwind solo. Expect wild xylophone
moments as well. Passages of prominent deep woodwind and percussion
presence, as well as obvious piano placement (all of which perhaps best
conveyed in "Credit") are reminiscent of
The Nightmare Before
Christmas as well. The tone of the score alternates between three
modes: the outright carnivalesque, the pleasantly character-based
melodies, and the somewhat anonymous suspense sections. The first and
second portions of the score are afforded themes by Elfman, the concept
as a whole generating a quintessential theme from the composer that
combines influences from various march and waltz mechanisms into a
slightly jazzy atmosphere to yield an over-the-top, chime-banging, tuba
blurting identity that may be difficult to grasp in its actual melody.
Look for the primary ascending and descending five-note phrase to
emerge, especially late in the theme's formal arrangement in
"Goosebumps." The character theme for piano, woodwinds, xylophone, and
light string rhythmic backing is introduced in "Ferris Wheel" and
follows the children throughout the film's conversational moments. It's
completely non-offensive but rather forgettable compared to the heart
that Elfman is capable of conveying in such situations. It has none of
the resonance, for instance, of his familial theme in
Real Steel
or the equivalent in James Horner's
Casper. The suspense material
uses textures adequately and references snarling orchestrations from the
action sequences that borrow portions of the main theme liberally. At
times, as in the latter half of "Capture," these passages are quite
impressive, but the pace of the film doesn't allow for much sustained
mood or development in this or any other section. Thus emerges the
downfall of
Goosebumps: the score's lack of clear narrative
development. It's a large-scale collection of Elfmanisms that parade by
without any meaningful movement from point A to point B. Perhaps that
should be expected from a score with three additional composers and
seven orchestrators. Still, the whole will please enthusiasts of vintage
Elfman zaniness, especially in its nicely divided album presentation.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.12
(in 95 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 154,830 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information about the score or film.
