Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #890
Written 11/19/99, Revised 8/4/08
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Buy it... if you think that trashy horror films should be
accompanied by equally campy, violently dynamic scores that stretch the
boundaries of the genre while tipping the hat to old, predictable
styles.
Avoid it... if you want anything remotely resembling a coherent and
consistent listening experience.
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| Davis |
House on Haunted Hill: (Don Davis) Released just
prior to Halloween, 1999, this remake of the William Castle cult classic
of 1958 was ill-conceived in nearly every sense. It walked willingly
into every predictable pitfall of dumb horror flicks and it was
appropriately bashed by critics and shunned by audiences. A group of
strangers is dared to stay overnight in a haunted, old asylum in which
many died in the 1930's, and somewhere in the confusion of the borrowing
of ideas from The Haunting of Hill House, the script of William
Malone's newer version completely lost the point of the Vincent Price
original. The main problem with the newer House on Haunted Hill
was the fact that the house itself was the only likable character,
making viewers eager to see how quickly each of its victims could be
dispatched. A wild edit of sound effects (to coincide with the film's
significant visual effects budget) largely drowns out Don Davis' score
for the project, which is somewhat of a shame given the composer's
obvious sense of camp that defines his contribution. Davis was late in
the process of redefining his career from orchestrator to composer, with
the unexpected success of The Matrix earlier in 1999 proving to
be the industry's wake-up call regarding his arrival. His writing career
was defined in that period by a series of suspense and horror thrillers
(The Matrix included) that often explored territory familiar to
fans of Christopher Young. The smart and creative, yet loud and
obnoxious scores for these films were often schizophrenic in style,
serving as good examples of the composer's wide range of talents but not
always yielding strong individual scores. Without a doubt, House on
Haunted Hill is exactly this type of effort. Davis obviously
approached the project with a decent sense of humor, from the variety of
music genres adapted for the picture's core identity all the way to the
track listings on the score's album release. There is over-the-top
Gothic mayhem to be heard in House on Haunted Hill, with
stereotypes well explored but complimented by a collection of completely
bizarre tangents that Davis uses to emphasize the silliness of
particular scenes. It's a score that's easy to admire, but extremely
difficult to enjoy in its entirety. Some passages will sound tired,
others will be strokes of genius, and a few are completely
intolerable.
It's no surprise that the house itself receives the
only significant and consistent musical identity in the score. Its
deliberate theme is introduced immediately in "Main Title" and is
restated in "House Humongous," "Funky Old House," and "No Exit" (among
others), the last of which contains a straightforward brass performance
of the theme in its latter half that exposes its progressions best. The
first two performances are full-blown Gothic powerhouses, using the
resounding force of a pipe organ to convey the necessary weight. Also
stereotypical in concept is the adult choir, though Davis' employment of
the group here is extremely creative (and arguably the technical
highlight of the work). In "Pencil Neck" and "Blackburn's Surprise,"
Davis instructs the choral ensemble to split into groups and shout Latin
lyrics, sometimes without tone. The battling voices (largely male versus
female) are intriguing, though quite horrific in their dissonant result.
The voices offer wailing crescendos in "Price in Perpetuity" and "The
Beast with the Least" that stick to old-school haunting effects. They
approach "The Price Petard" with a purely harmonic and beautiful intent,
and their contribution is equally digestible in the following two cues
(in which their use mimics Christopher Young's
Hellraiser
scores). The action cues are largely extensions of dissonant,
overlapping brass figures from
The Matrix, rarely sticking to one
rhythmic device for very long. There are several genre-defying auxiliary
cues that make
House on Haunted Hill a truly bizarre listening
experience. Foremost is the waltz material, heard mostly in "Hans
Verbosemann" and "Sorry, Tulip" (likely representing the primary couple
of the story), as well as the retro jazz of "Misty Misogamy." The
awkward "Price Pestiferous" throws in Arabic-leaning strings and
percussion. The duo of "Struggling to Escape" and "Soiree A Saturation"
are the source of the most irritation, with the former being a electric
guitar laced rock piece that would work great as the title piece for
another score, and the latter being a truly terrible collection of
grinding, synthetic sound effects. Overall,
House on Haunted Hill
strays so close to parody levels that it's difficult to take any part of
it really seriously. Davis obviously knew this film was terrible. The
album becomes a sampler of his talents in many genres, reducing its
effectiveness as one continuous listening experience.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Don Davis reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.3
(in 10 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.06
(in 44,959 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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