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I Know What You Did Last Summer: (John Debney) They thought it
was over... but no, there was more money to be made! The splashy teenage horror
flick
I Know What You Did Last Summer breathed continued life into the
concept of the 1980's urban teen thriller genre. With this franchise paralleling
the
Scream films (among others), young, impressionable audiences couldn't
get enough of the idea that out there, somewhere, is a deranged maniac who is going
to come and use some nasty tool to disembowel you. In this case, two young hunks
and two young babes (all of which moving on to pop culture careers of their own)
kill a man on an oceanfront rode in an automobile accident. They decide to dump him
in the ocean and hope nobody discovers the event, but when they are eventually
stalked and friends start dying, they begin to reconsider the choice they made.
Composer John Debney was fresh off of a typical comedy routine for that period in
his career, having finished
Liar Liar just before tackling
I Know What
You Did Last Summer. As stereotypical horror scores go, this one is a whopper.
Debney makes use of a frighteningly strong orchestral approach to create a highly
effective and thrilling listening experience. In the film, it extends the horror
felt by the lead franchise character (Julie) and her dumb, but somewhat guilty
friends to a convincingly realistic level, surpassing the expectation of trashy
electronic scores that existed for similarly minded films in their previous
generation. The John Carpenter approach to the genre (established, of course, with
his classic work for
Halloween), sometimes utilizing a catchy theme but
always keeping the music grounded in pop culture by using synthetic sounds, was the
industry standard until the 1990's. Debney's choice of sound, however, takes the
typical minor key applications of horror master Christopher Young and elevates them
to a massive level. As can be expected, it is a very choppy and disturbed score,
with four distinct cues of soft, suspense-building music, six cues of similarly
built, foreshadowing suspense that is occasionally rocked by sudden blasts of
horror, and eleven cues of consistent, fully developed chase rhythms with pounding
percussion or slashing brass and strings.
In general, this score is a larger version of the slash and dash
approach, but that still makes it very predictable music. The most enjoyable parts
of
I Know What You Did Last Summer are those with performances or
manipulations of "Julie's Theme," the primary identity of the film. This opening
cue, as well as "Homecoming" and "Missy's Story," easily support various, easily
listenable woodwind, piano, or soft string versions of this theme. It is a creepy
and melancholy theme, though it also conveys romantic and determined
characteristics as well, making it an identity that rivals the best of Young's
harmonic creations for the genre. Two grand uses of this theme appear in "Julie
Takes a Cruise" and "Final Confrontation," as the character finally confronts her
attacker. The material in between these tracks is sufficient as suspense and horror
music, and although some of it sounds as though it could be stock-grade material,
it is the type that can succeed in giving you the creeps if you listen to it late
at night. With its straight-forward presentation, you can easily follow the plot of
the film as every harsh brass crash represents a slash of the hook or other
uncomfortable visual. These sections are unsettling on album, naturally, and could
be difficult to tolerate for those who don't hold much value for standard usage of
dissonance. As a whole, Debney's score for
I Know What You Did Last Summer
is not as rambunctious as
The Relic, nor is it as brooding in lengthy
portions. It functions, but offers little to excite on album. The statements of the
main theme are enjoyable, albeit brief. Perhaps taking these three or four tracks
and editing them in with a few of the more consistent action cues would be the best
bet here, although the result would still amount to only eight to ten minutes of
really solid and distinct stand-alone music. The score is not readily available on
album; John Debney released it as the seventh album in his continuing series of
promotional CDs that would please the composer's fans over the course of the
1990's. For most casual film music listeners, obtaining an original copy of this
album will likely not be worth its cost (which was enormous at the time of the
album's initial, limited release and has remained steady ever since due to the
franchise's success). John Frizzell went on to score the inferior sequel.
*** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
| Bias Check: | For John Debney reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.23 (in 49 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.01
(in 42,775 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
