I usually try to catch up to a horror movie soundtrack or two every year around Halloween and this is the one I landed on this year for whatever reason. It’s a really good score. In the context of the film, it really just kind of fades into the atmosphere of the movie which is what Shore said he was specifically going for, not music that you’d notice or that would stand out. Sometimes scores like that don’t work as well as an album and I’ll admit that the first time through this CD, I was a little underwhelmed. But repeated listens really unlocked it for me and I’ll tell you that I now think it’s an absolute masterpiece. It's dark and grim without being overdone; it’s scary without ever being overt (with the exception of the track Lecter Escapes, which does go very bombastic indeed; it’s my least favorite track by far). It’s an incredibly mature and subtle score for Shore at this point in his career, understated and unsettling in a quiet way. I was surprised at just how sad the music is; it’s sad at least as often as its scary, something I had never really noticed before. And I was surprised at the light electronic elements. Shore was very gifted at electronic scores; last year, I listened to his score for Cronenberg’s Videodrome and it really knocked me out. But I would have said that this score didn’t have any electronics, but it does. The first really noticeable bit comes very late when track ten, Belvedere Ohio, starts with a strange electronic tone that fades perfectly into that extremely sad, string-drenched track. Then in The Cellar, the longest track here at over seven minutes, features a solid two or three minutes right in the middle where the orchestra disappears completely and we get the kind of ambient rumbles and drones that we’re used to getting in horror scores now. That was so surprising, but it’s incredibly well done. The album as a whole is great, as I’ve said, and it builds to a really great suite of three tracks, Belvedere Ohio, The Moth & The Cellar, which is the best stretch of the album, tracks that embrace both the tragic and the scary elements of this story. This is a fantastic score and I feel like it might be one I trot out for a relisten every other October or so. It’s Shore at his most serious, restrained and sophisticated and while those three adjectives don’t always make for great scores, particularly not in the horror genre, they do here. 4 stars.
tl;dr – a serious, somber and mature score takes a couple of listens to really unlock, but it’s a beautiful, frightening, tragic and subtle masterpiece once it does unlock. 4 stars.