A few years after the film's debut, Coil released their
rejected demos for
Hellraiser, largely consisting of 17 minutes
of thematic ideas and packaged as "The Unreleased Themes for
Hellraiser." The dark electronic keyboarding with driving rhythmic
movement was built upon simplistic, repetitive themes with pop-like
hints and groaning sound design for the villains. If Barker had applied
that music to the movie, the tone of the picture would have been far
less melodramatic and conventionally contemporary. Based on the
recommendation of his editor, Barker then hired fresh composer
Christopher Young, who had broken into the horror genre a couple of
years earlier and had the capability to write music that blended
orchestral fantasy with the challenging, dissonant soundscapes that
electronics had typically supplied to such films during that era. Young,
interestingly, was not initially sold on the idea of composing a
massively gothic and strikingly tonal score for
Hellraiser, but
Barker insisted that the core of his concept was built upon a love
story, albeit demented, and that the horror elements would stand well
without an overbearingly dissonant mass of noise defining it. Once Young
was pointed back to a more organic musical solution for the project, he
openly embraced the use of the ensemble to yield the same kind of
dissonance for the outright horror aspects of the story that
synthesizers could have provided just as well. But, despite plenty of
unpleasant bombast and atmospheres, his music for
Hellraiser and
its first sequel will always be known for its utterly massive gothic
expressions of grandeur for the sick romanticism of Barker's vision. His
music for these two movies became iconic almost immediately and
redefined the genre of horror music in ways that afforded the composer
steady work for decades. While the singularly impressive immensity of
the highlights of the sequel score,
Hellbound: Hellraiser II,
remains more memorable for common fans and had the bigger direct impact
on the genre, Young's music for
Hellraiser is no less effective.
In fact, the first score is arguably the more satisfyingly consistent
listening experience from start to finish, even if its recording is a
bit smaller and more archival in scope.
Young's approach for
Hellraiser is largely
perfect, modulating his tonalities and the intensity of the orchestra to
yield a gripping blend of intrigue, sorrow, and terror. The instrumental
balance is highly metallic, significant amounts of such percussion
struck frequently. The composer's use of extremely high violin lines and
low brass blasts provides the full soundscape with plenty of depth. The
score hides none of its intentions, pounding on key without remorse.
Common to all the main thematic performances is a repeated throbbing on
key by bass brass with thrashing metallic percussion sometimes joining,
as at the start of "Reunion." A piano is paired with elegant waltz
formations for one theme, suggesting timeless sophistication, especially
with bloated, fully tonal expressions for each instrumental line. The
style of
Hellraiser's score is where Young carries the most
consistency between his two efforts in the franchise. While he concocts
attractive themes for the two movies, their direct carryovers are not as
prominent as one might desire. This issue is more of a nagging annoyance
in
Hellbound: Hellraiser II, as there was really nothing wrong
with the original set of themes that Young provided for
Hellraiser. The score is supported by three primary themes and a
bevy of secondary ideas, but the stage for the franchise is ultimately
established best by Young's main theme for the puzzle box that doubles
as the overarching
Hellraiser identity. With its probing,
three-note phrasing in a pyramid formation before falling from grace in
secondary lines, this theme is Young's method of addressing the creepy
but alluring intrigue element. Often performed by very high violins with
plucking lower strings and winds below, this idea is delicate, romantic,
and mysterious before taking an ominous stance in "Hellraiser." It's
deconstructed slightly on flutes at the outset of "Hellbound Heart"
before reforming on violins, and the theme is carried by horns and
woodwinds briefly at 1:20 into "The Lament Configuration" in between
more threatening dissonance and rattling chains for the box's
implications. The theme is reduced to a shell of itself in the middle of
"Reunion" amongst fragments of the supporting sadness theme and vaguely
guides the early stewing in "Brought On by Night." This main theme
stomps with power at the start of "Another Puzzle," yielding a big
violin and brass combination, though most of the cue returns to the more
pensive version of the idea on string layers from the opening cue.
While Young briefly revisits his main theme for
Hellraiser a few times in the sequel score, his secondary idea
for this film only briefly returns again for the composer. The
resurrection theme is the composer's representation of dark fantasies in
the concept, the elegant waltz of focused force guided mostly by
curiously demented, two-note formations. Introduced immediately in
"Resurrection" and building to a magnificently tonal statement, this
theme slows to a monumental unfinished phrase at the cue's end. A
demented music box performance in "Seduction and Pursuit" is distorted
to dissonance, though the idea returns to original form in
"Re-Resurrection" for a heavy crescendo of power and another fanfare at
the end that once again remains unresolved. The third major theme in
Hellraiser represents sadness and desperation, and not always in
a likeable fashion. This theme consists of yearning, rising,
melodramatic string figures in the latter half of "Hellbound Heart" but
is quickly twisted into a dark variant in the first minute of "Reunion."
Eerie and aimless violins guide the idea in the middle of "In Love's
Name," with solo horn taking the descending secondary lines prominently.
It opens "The Rat Slice Quartet" in quiet desperation on strings and
informs the rest of the cue before taking a threatening stance at the
outset of "Uncle Frank," where strings force its figures to an agonizing
frenzy in the cue's latter half. The sadness theme finally supplies a
dissonant conclusion to "Brought On by Night" and would live on in a
pair of cues in
Hellbound: Hellraiser II as this set of
characters resolves their purposes. The secondary themes in
Hellraiser are not as prominent, but they suffice. Young doesn't
do as much in this score for the villains as he could have, adapting the
descending parts of the sadness theme for a muscular passage on brass at
0:19 into "A Quick Death" that could suffice for the role. This material
was taken in a different direction in the sequel, as was the composer's
more general Cenobite material. This less accessible music is a
cacophony of mostly organic sound in the first half of "The Lament
Configuration" that matures during of "The Cenobites." Related is a
menace motif consisting of rising pair of notes to key in the bass as
heard on low strings at the end of "A Quick Death" and start of "In
Love's Name." A chase motif is explored in the latter half of "Seduction
and Pursuit" but never really matures. Overall, despite its outright
horror passages of harrowing dissonance,
Hellraiser is an
engaging and memorably dramatic score. It came to define Young's
trademark sound and remains a very fine entry in the genre. All its
album releases offer the same presentation and make an excellent
companion to the sequel score.
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