Buy it... only if you require the ultimate tool of derangement (a bizarre and unlikely stylistic blend of Gremlins and Hoosiers) with which to plunder the sanity of your dwelling partner or repel possible mates.

Avoid it... even if you consider yourself a faithful collector of Jerry Goldsmith's 1980's scores, because Link is a rare circumstance in which the composer nearly ruined an already suspect film with a totally inappropriate score.

Goldsmith

Link: (Jerry Goldsmith) Plenty of films have been made using the premise of cute monkeys in underdog roles. Only rarely, as in Planet of the Apes, are the tables turned against humans, and Richard Franklin's 1986 horror film Link was another such attempt to give the chimps the upper hand. Terence Stamp plays a scientist studying monkeys in his creepy, hilltop English mansion in contemporary times, and when a student played by Elizabeth Shue comes under his employment and is made responsible for the animals, things go awry. The oldest monkey, Link, known for wearing suits and smoking cigars, has learned that the scientist plans to sell him to certain death and, instead of facing his destiny willingly, goes on a murderous rampage that places the lone protagonist (unless you side with the chimps) in danger. Several devastating plot holes doomed Link, and not even some flashes of nudity from a Shue body double, admirable training of the monkeys (no men in suits or robots were used in the production), and a Jerry Goldsmith score could salvage the long forgotten film. At a time when the composer could do little wrong, with both Hoosiers and Lionheart highlighting his career in 1986 and 1987, Link was a truly bizarre sideshow. Goldsmith would make a career out of scoring such absolute trash in the 1990's, though Link remains the kind of picture that only Goldsmith collectors have much interest in pursuing. More interesting than the assignment itself is the composer's extremely unexpected approach to handling the subject manner. Film music critics often refer to wild, intolerable carnival music as some variant of "demonic circus music," and, quite frightfully, Goldsmith actually decided to construct an entire score around this cliche. His counter-intuitive method of addressing the straight horror elements in Link is based upon the creation of a wacky, electronic circus-like environment for the misbehaving monkeys and then the maniacal twisting of that sound into deviously frantic incarnations later in the narrative. The National Philharmonic Orchestra plays a secondary role behind Goldsmith's electronics of Gremlins fame. In fact, the film could be described as an awkward merging of Gremlins and The Shining, and Goldsmith thus uses his previous score as a base of operation in Link. Unfortunately, when you take chances, you sometimes miss the mark, and Link is a distractingly inappropriate and nearly intolerable result.

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It's not often that Goldsmith completely blew an assignment. He was so reliable in his assessment of a film's music needs that hearing a score almost ruin a one in context (and make for an obnoxious listening experience on album as well) is quite rare. The style of Link is a faithful merging of Goldsmith's music for Gremlins and Hoosiers. If that sounds alarmingly strange to you, then you're right. The title theme is a sickly perverted extension of the wacky Gremlins theme, sharing several progressions and a hip, jovial spirit. The electronic rendering, perhaps using the extensive drum pad hits as a reminder of the African jungle, is equally familiar to the previous score. From Hoosiers comes a faint string theme of light romance, only appearing twice in the film, and this idea's anonymous structure doesn't help it compete with the monkeys' distinctive theme. Within that idea is the use of the bouncing basketball and high range faux-cymbal hits that will remind of Hoosiers as well, and for brief moments in later cues (and especially "Angry Link"), the brass and string accompaniment to the rhythmic mayhem connects this score to the famed Goldsmith effort a bit more. In fact, "Angry Link" may be the only palatable cue in the score for collectors of the composer to appreciate. He does alter the tacky theme for darker purposes, led by ominous string interludes such as the one about a minute into "Bravo Link," but the score never fails to return to the wilder side of its personality, even when the film calls for tighter suspense. Some of the music in Link is so sickeningly bizarre (and not in a truly comedy fashion as in The 'Burbs) that it becomes a terrible distraction in the film and a bewilderment to the listener of the score album. It's clearly evident that Goldsmith must have had a ton of fun with this score, though Link is no I.Q., and because of the score's ultimate inflexibility to adapt outside of its carnival origins, the work fails on all levels. Its futuristic sound effects (mimicking the sounds of a flock of birds in the opening and closing recordings) are equally mind-boggling. The score was inexplicably released by Varèse Sarabande in 1986 (with cute track titles) and fell completely out of print. Replacing it on the secondary market was a bootleg that expands the material from 39 minutes to 50, the extra music consisting of mostly redundant filler in lesser, sometimes distorted sound quality. Intrada Records used the same studio source for a strict reissue of the Varèse contents in 2011, a limited product that sold out immediately. No place on any presentation exists the song "I'm an Apeman," humorously inserted twice into the film. Overall, there's absolutely no reason to go ape wild for this weak link in Goldsmith's career. *   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.32 (in 133,462 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.