Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid: (Nerida
Tyson-Chew) It's fitting that the blood orchids of jungles of Borneo only
bloom once every seven years; perhaps this means that we'll get another
Anaconda movie once every seven years as well. The original 1997 film
in the series was actually quite reasonable, with a decent cast and one
vicious giant snake posing itself as the ultimate villain of the jungle. For
the 2004 sequel, a hokey line of coincidental events causes the need for a
large group of city-dwellers to go to the lair of the giant snakes once
again. If you want to have any fun with the film whatsoever, you have to
dismiss the dozens of completely illogical aspects to the film's premise,
and simply accept that these people really are motivated, although
underequipped to go search for another blood orchid sample and face the
treacherous snakes. And this time, of course, there are lots and lots of
these foul creatures, so the film can pace itself nicely by having one of
its large cast eaten at regular intervals. Composer Randy Edelman provided a
decent score for
Anaconda, but with the nearly complete change-over
of cast and crew for
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, Dwight
Little (whose mostly television background has obvious impacts on the film's
camera movements) hired relatively unknown Australian composer Nerida
Tyson-Chew for the scoring duties for the sequel. Involved mostly with
Australian television projects since the early 1990's, Tyson-Chew received
considerable acclaim and awards recognition for Richard Franklin's
Hotel
Sorrento, and has been involved as a music editor, orchestrator,
producer, conductor, or composer in a wide range of genres, from
Ferngully 2 to
Alien 3.
Tyson-Chew's best known work for American audiences is
likely for
Batman: The Animated Series on television, and
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is her first major solo
assignment for a front-line motion picture. Her credentials hail from USC in
Los Angeles (having studied under the likes of Jerry Goldsmith, Henry
Mancini, and Bruce Broughton), and she is known for her experimentation with
unorthodox methods of combining orchestration, choir, lyrics, and solos into
her personal style of scoring. Tyson-Chew's ability to stir up a new sound
for a tired, cliche-driven genre of film is remarkable. After you've heard
six or seven low-grade horror scores involving giant monsters, you realize
that there are only a certain number of ways in which you can create an
appropriate musical atmosphere for that situation. How Tyson-Chew handles it
is by creating a score centered largely around the ethnic elements of
Borneo, with nohkran and shakuhachi flutes fluttering in the higher ranges
while diverse arrays of percussion --both in drums and in non-traditional
metallic elements-- constantly rumble in the lower ranges. A full orchestral
ensemble performs with considerable power in
Anacondas: The Hunt for the
Blood Orchid, distinguishing the score by it sheer presence of depth in
the moments of anticipation as well as, of course, the magnitude of force
that the ensemble can create during pounding and strikingly rhythmic action
sequences. Also of interest is how Tyson-Chew has layered the score, with
the overwhelming Asian drums resonating deeply in the background while the
woodwinds dance wildly in the mid-ranges, and the chopping strings and
crystal-clear brass occupy the forefront. Other spine-tingling percussion
meanders through those three levels, and the resulting wall of horrifying
sound is strangly enticing even during its most brutal moments.
The score has a very subtle thematic construct at the start
(heard in brass in the first cue) that is not established further, although
the relentless ambition of the score --either to represent the snakes or the
search for eternal life (it doesn't really matter)-- is what causes the
score to transcend its genre. Several downright kick-ass sequences of
rhythmic mayhem allow the drums and brass to intermingle at rates of speed
and levels of brutality that will impress you with their ability to make
convincing noise without really going anywhere or accomplishing any larger
musical construct. A well balanced mixing causes even the low-level groans
and snarls of percussion and base strings --presumably the sounds of the
snakes in preparation of a nice meal-- to be easily audible despite the best
efforts of the brass section to steal the show. In the end, Tyson-Chew's
score follows the formula development for the genre, lacking theme and
mellowing to a somewhat comforting finale. On paper, it may very well have
been an average horror score, and if you don't care for constant chasing and
sudden strikes of the full ensemble, then definitely skip this one. But
Tyson-Chew has done something here that needs recognition: her score
sounds as though it was performed and recorded in a jungle, creating
an authentic and distinct sound with her varied specialty instruments and
mixing process. The talent and quality of ideas in the
Anacondas: The
Hunt for the Blood Orchid score, regardless of the fact that the work
will probably be lost in a forgotten film, promises a bright future for
Tyson-Chew if she's given the opportunity to experiment further in this and
other genres in Hollywood's mainstream. This particular effort is a rare
horror score that's enjoyable because of its noise-factor rather than its
high-profile themes.
****
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
