Buy it... if you want a truly original, small-scale score that even avid collectors could not recognize as a James Horner work.

Avoid it... if Horner's musical interpretation of being on a drug trip doesn't sound like it would make any logical sense to you whatsoever.

Horner

The Chumscrubber: (James Horner) Black comedies about the pitfalls of American suburban life for the teenage crowd have experienced a renaissance in the last ten years, aided by the immensely popular mainstream hit, American Beauty. No film festival would be complete with several entries in this genre (convenient, of course, because of the low budgets required to make them), and a hyped favorite at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival was The Chumscrubber. A film lauded by debutant director Arie Posen and screenwriter Zac Stanford, The Chumscrubber is a look at life in Hillside, the shallow and medicated suburb of average Americana (in this genre of film, at least) in which parents don't care about their kids, the kids are hopelessly ingrained in drugs, and a character who defeats nasties with his detached head in a post-armageddon world of a video game both inspires the teens and the title of this film. The irony is that if you've never wandered about life in the drugged daze that these teens are experiencing, you'd never be able to relate to the world that Posen has brought to the screen. Despite a remarkable cast of stars portraying the careless parents of these teens (no surprise for one of these artsy, hip projects), the film's cartoonish and satirical edge lost most reviewers before the film could reach a wide release. Torched by audiences who likely didn't understand the film at all, it has all but disappeared from mainstream contention. Like many Sundance films, The Chumscrubber attracted the services of a top composer, but not one you'd think capable of scoring a film through the perspective of a highly medicated or drugged out group of teens. The playfully black nature of the film, bordering on the immensely tragic, would make this project perfect for the talents of Danny Elfman (who never shuns tragedy) or Thomas Newman (who has made a recent career in this genre), but as the sticker on the CD proudly proclaims, the composer of Titanic was inked to a deal for The Chumscrubber.

If you sometimes think you're on drugs when you hear James Horner use his same material over and over again in countless scores (the ultimate doped up deja vu?), now you get to hear Horner do his best imitation of taking a little snort himself. His rather short contribution to the film features music that takes a dash of Danny Elfman, a touch of John Ottman, and a snippet of Thomas Newman, and provides a distinctly unique, though not necessarily sane recipe. Bashers of Horner's repetitions will have a very hard time chewing on this one, for Horner and his few trusty cohorts have produced a small-scale score for piano, guitar, and synthesizer that wouldn't be recognizable as a Horner work to even his most hardy collectors. Music for satires like this require a devilish design, and that's something that Horner doesn't accomplish on the merits of his own writing, but he does accomplish it simply because the music is so different from his other works. A simplistic theme constructed from four chord progressions repeats endlessly in its performances, separated by wild tangents with rhythms obviously aimed at the openly comedic scenes, and one outrageously funny and truly awful cue for the title character. The tone of the score is subdued in its lack of density --a total and complete opposite of the concurrent Flightplan-- and rolls gently along in the same daze as scores like Holy Smoke! and One Hour Photo. These rhythms often consist of a meandering synth sound design, an acoustic guitar, and piano, and to its benefit, Horner mirrors the drug-induced pleasures with a constantly harmonious and pleasant tone... and a very eerie one at that.

	Only $9.99

The "Dolphins" and "Digging Montage" cues are straight from a new age album meant to put you asleep, and that's why the more extroverted cues will catch your attention off the bat. Almost Italian-style rhythms with faux-clarinet melodies occupy three cues, and in "Pot Casserole" and "A Confluence of Families," you hear Horner do his most genuine imitation of Danny Elfman's subtle, tragic cues for Corpse Bride or The Nightmare Before Christmas, complete with a longing piano and music box effect. The most awkward cue is "Parental Rift/The Chumscrubber," the latter of which demands a lengthy, chaotic theme for electric guitar, heavy bass rhythms, and a wickedly perverse attitude. The wailing sirens in the distance make this a perfect cue for late night broadcasts out your apartment windows. The score ends without ceremony, and begs the obvious question about the motives behind the music. On its own, it is quite pretty in sections (making a good anthem for the suburbia portrayed on screen), and it has a few hilarious individual cues. But the comedic rhythms are handled with a far sharper touch by other composers, and you have to wonder if something a little more dense (even in the same instrumentation) would have given the score a more believable intensity. In other words, the score for The Chumscrubber doesn't prove Horner's capability in the drug genre, although you certainly have to admire him for trying. The album contains about 35 minutes of his score and five songs that really do play better to the genre. That cue for the video game character is not to be missed; who says Horner doesn't have a sense of humor? Perhaps this is evidence that the man has a quality parody score in his blood, ready to be unleashed someday... **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13 (in 98 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25 (in 184,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.