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Orchestrated by:
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Arthur Morton
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Labels and Dates:
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Mogwai bootleg
(1999)
Geffen/Import
(1993)
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Availability:
The official 1993 Geffen release with only 16 minutes of score is long out of print.
The bootleg albums began appearing on the secondary market in 1999. They feature nearly identical
cover art.
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you've already sought and enjoyed the more
readily available (and possibly easier to appreciate) Gremlins II
score on album.
Avoid it... if you tend to be annoyed by Jerry Goldsmith's harsher
electronic tones that existed primarily in his mid-80's scores.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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| | Goldsmith | |
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Gremlins: (Jerry Goldsmith) Joe Dante's comedic
answer to every horror movie cliche in the playbook was the 1984 romp
Gremlins, a laugh fest involving the now infamous little
fuzzballs that grow into nasty killers and terrorize a perfect little
American town. The rules are relatively simple, and audiences became
well aware that when you happen across a cute little creature called a
Mogwai, it's generally a good idea to avoid feeding it after midnight
and/or getting it wet. If you commit the first error, the adorable
fluffball grows into a big vicious gremlin that will act similarly to
the monsters in the Alien series. If you commit the second error,
you compound the problem by causing them to multiply like tribbles.
Either way, as everyone knows by now, expose them to sunshine and your
problem is more or less solved. The setting in Gremlins was an
unsuspecting town you might see in any horror film, and along with
exploiting the Christmas season and common myths about your local
Chinatown, Dante would shock audiences with enough funny scares to merit
a 1990 sequel in which the same lead characters fight off the little
beasts in an urban skyscraper. The director's relationship with composer
Jerry Goldsmith had begun with Dante's Twilight Zone and was just
beginning to role with Gremlins, a project obviously tackled with
much humor by the veteran composer. His experimentation with electronics
was in full swing by 1984, with many of his most successful
largely-synthetic scores coming in the following few years. In many
ways, Goldsmith's technique in Gremlins would be a warm-up for
Dante's satirical The 'Burbs, for which Goldsmith would write a
remarkably funny score with a perfect combination of snappy Americana
spirit and synthetic mayhem. Some listeners might even say that
Goldsmith's merging of the orchestral and synthetic styles would make
Gremlins II a more mature and listenable score. But maturity
wasn't the primary idea for Gremlins, a score that was supposed
to sound ridiculous for much of its length.
It is with an active sense of humor that you have to
appreciate Gremlins, despite the fact that most of what you hear
in its contents would be executed better by Goldsmith in subsequent
efforts. In this case, it's the idea that counts, and Goldsmith hits the
nail on the head with his concepts. The catchy title theme for
Gremlins was a staple of the composer's concert rounds for many
years, and whether you can tolerate it or not, there's no getting around
the fact that it's memorable. Its lone full performance in
Gremlins comes in the end credits, and is performed entirely by
the composer's electronics. Its appearance throughout the film coincides
with the rise of the evil side of the gremlins, with the pace of the
film never allowing it much cohesiveness for lengthy periods of time.
More enjoyable are the two subthemes that become more evident on album.
First, Gizmo's theme, heard in "The Gift" and extensively the final two
cues, is the expected tender and loving representation of the lead
gremlin's cute personality. Second, a rollicking theme for the town
itself is introduced in "Late for Work" and features Goldsmith in
perhaps the most humorous township spirit since The Film-Flam Man
(without the Western stylings, of course). Both of these themes would be
exploited by the sequel's score, arguably to an equal or greater effect.
A less tolerable theme for "Mrs. Deagle" takes some of the more
obnoxious, slurred low-range electronics (sounding like a badly mutate
tuba) from the upcoming Legend and arranges them into an
insufferably bizarre march. One of the better qualities of both
Gremlins scores is Goldsmith's knack for extra touches of
creativity that define the scores' character. In the original, these
range from a straight forward presentation of the Christmas carol
"Silent Night" to a single sound effect that dominates the score. That
sound is a merging of a yowling cat and a police siren, usually offered
in tones closer to the former than the latter. Goldsmith uses the cat
howl as an ominous, animalistic warning that things are awry, and the
technique (among a few others) works.
On album, though, some of the sound effects are a tad
difficult to enjoy at times, especially when mixed harshly at the
forefront of the soundscape. The presentation of electronics and
orchestra together aren't integrated as well as they could be in
Gremlins, with the two often existing best when separated. A
straight, triumphant action rhythm in "Gizmo Saves the Day" is a
Prokofiev/Horner-style, militaristic tone for orchestra alone (possibly
a nod to Horner's popular Star Trek scores at the time). Overall,
Gremlins is a score you have to love, but one that doesn't
necessarily offer its own material at its best; both the sequel score
and a number of performing groups (the City of Prague Philharmonic in
particular... one of their best performances ever) have proven that an
orchestra alone can have a riot with the "Gremlin Rag" better than even
Goldsmith's original synths could accomplish. With that in mind,
Gremlins II may be a better listening experience on album for
some. The situation involving the original Gremlins on album is
problematic. The commercial Geffen CD, a very early product, would
feature only 16 minutes of Goldsmith's score along with the usual
assortment of songs (Geffen would do the same to Goldsmith's
Innerspace a few years later), and fans inevitably sought out a
variety of bootlegs of 50 minutes from Gremlins that became
available at the end of the 1990's. These bootlegs typically featured
poor sound and tacked a few tracks from The Twilight Zone onto
the end, though subsequent variants of the bootleg would offer
Gremlins alone on a bootleg with the same tracks, but vastly
improved sound quality that is largely indistinguishable from other
Goldsmith scores of the era. If you're just getting your feet wet in the
world of gremlin music, then maybe the commercially available sequel
score would be a better start. But few would deny that Gremlins
itself is an endearing classic from the height of Goldsmith's
electronically-dominated phase in the 1980's. ****
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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Track Listings (1993 Geffen Album):
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Total Time: 30:53
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• 1. Gremlins... Mega Madness - performed by Michael Sembello (3:50)
• 2. Make It Shine - performed by Quarterflash (4:10)
• 3. Out Out - performed by Peter Gabriel (7:00)
• 4. The Gift (4:51)
• 5. Gizmo (4:09)
• 6. Mrs. Deagle (2:50)
• 7. The Gremlin Rag (4:03)
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Track Listings (1999 Bootleg Album):
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Total Time: 68:35
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• 1. Fanfare and Prologue (4:34)
• 2. Late For Work (1:46)
• 3. Mrs. Deagle (2:16)
• 4. The Gift (2:16)
• 5. Pop Goes The Gremlin (3:00)
• 6. Billy and Katey (2:53)
• 7. Gremlins On The Loose (1:24)
• 8. Mom Vs. The Gremlins (4:01)
• 9. Stripe Blows His Nose (1:12)
• 10. A Gremlin Goes Postal (0:46)
• 11. DeagleDeagleDeagle (2:21)
• 12. The Gremlins Attack (2:05)
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• 13. Billy To The Rescue/A Christmas Story (3:27)
• 14. Movie Theatre/Explosion (2:38)
• 15. Hunting Stripe (3:33)
• 16. Gizmo Saves The Day (5:41)
• 17. Bye, Billy (2:57)
• 18. The Gremlin Rag (4:08)
Bonus cues from The Twilight Zone:
• 19. Twilight Zone Theme (0:42)
• 20. It's A Good Life (10:33)
• 21. Overture And End Titles (5:53)
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Neither insert includes extra information about the score or film.
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