Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you desire the best ten minutes of music that Christopher Young provided for this franchise, a better enunciation of ideas that were far more challenging in the first score. Avoid it... if hearing originality is your primary goal, because other than a few Japanese instrumental accents, this sequel score is still extremely common to Young's standard methodology. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Grudge 2: (Christopher Young) Just when you thought that humanity had discovered every motive one person could use to justify killing another, Takashi Shimizu and his Japanese franchise of Ju-on movies decided to whip up a new curse with which to baffle investigators. Translated into the series of The Grudge films in America, the concept is little more than an excuse to take a decent haunted house story and subject it to slasher movie cliches and torture fetish displays that do nothing to serve the betterment of mankind. While the original adaptation of The Grudge to the United States in 2004 was accepted by critics and audiences as a decent recapitulation of the basic premise, The Grudge 2 in 2006 was universally shredded by reviewers and suffered one of the most stunning drop-offs in theatrical earnings ever witnessed. While the movie did generate a profit, it failed to meet expectations and largely disgraced the already questionable franchise. Returning for a bit role in the sequel is Sarah Michelle Gellar, a convenient ploy to dispatch early in the renewed storyline. The overarching story of these movies is difficult to follow because of their non-linear display, but it suffices to say that the premise simply throws fresh meat at the ghosts doing the killing in The Grudge and beyond, arbitrarily abusing new characters with Saw- like predictability. In The Grudge 2 specifically, the curse has escaped the confines of its haunted house in Japan and made it to Chicago, where more equal opportunity executions can be shown for sudden audience frights. The stupidity of concept didn't seem to bother composer Christopher Young, who scored the first two movies before departing with the 2009 entry. These are the kinds of films that Young could score in his sleep, and that may have actually happened with The Grudge. Although basically characteristic of Young's normal methodology, that score remains one of the horror master's rare misses in the genre. Its rather low budget and atmospheric approach did not contain the intelligence in dynamic instrumentation or allure of lyrical enticement to give it any redeeming element. The seeds of both techniques were there, but the main melody that Young provided for the concept was intentionally challenging to grasp, the harrowing sequences of death were handled with surprisingly dull, unlistenable string techniques, and the droning mass of atmospheric underscore was disappointingly lacking in engaging qualities. For The Grudge 2, Young built upon the same basic foundation but offers far better developed and enunciated ideas with a wider instrumental palette. As a result, the score resides far more comfortably amongst the composer's other horror achievements. The ensemble's scope is effectively widened, accenting solo instruments sprinkled throughout the otherwise string-dominated work. A handful of Japanese-specific contributors more clearly fuses with the orchestra, and a deep choral presence takes the vocalized element past the simply manipulated solo performances. A passage of less altered solo voices does exist to a beautiful end in "Shikyo." The piano and other percussive elements return, though the awkward merging of chimes and cimbalom-like tones in the previous score is replaced by a straight forward chime sound here. As a result, the reprised main theme is far easier to appreciate as well. The performances of this idea in The Grudge intentionally slurred their pitch on the low end of the two-note figures that open the theme; that technique is absent here, the cleaner enunciation aiding in its accessibility greatly. The statement of the theme in "Ju-on 2" is complete with the extremely deep male choral accompaniment heard in some of Young's best works, though this contribution does not carry over to the rest of the score as hoped. In "Hitan," the composer shifts into his standard suspense mode, meandering strings of harmonic beauty eventually building to one of the score's new melodic ideas (manipulated from the parameters of the main theme). In "Higeki," this material achieves depth reminiscent of The Fly II, its descending lines extending into the vocalized portions of "Shikyo." To conclude the album presentation in "Inochi," Young coalesces this material into one spooky but rather pleasant five minutes. Fans of the maddening horror techniques from the first score will be pleased by "Ritsuzen" and "Akuma," both of which feature the abrasive striking and plucking of violins that seemingly avoid any organized direction. There is a fair amount of morbidly groaning suspense underscore that continues in The Grudge 2, but in this work it is often layered with fleeting and interesting instrumental colors completely absent from The Grudge. Listeners seeking to get a taste of this franchise's music would be best served by starting with the opening track of The Grudge 2 on its score-only album, followed by "Inochi." Like most recommendable Young albums of this variety, there is ten minutes of darkly pretty setup and/or resolution to set aside from the pure horror material. There are still narrative issues in the music's flow, but collectors of the composer's gloomy work won't care about such matters. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 45:41
All artwork and sound clips from The Grudge 2 are Copyright © 2006, Varèse Sarabande. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/30/11, updated 12/30/11. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2011-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
