Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you have a high tolerance for challengingly manipulated and unpleasant exhibitions of sound design in your film music, especially if they utilize noises so awkwardly weird at times that they give you the giggles. Avoid it... if you have no wish to embrace arguably John Ottman's worst career score to this point, an unfortunately lifeless accompaniment to the extreme sexual depravity that may have kept this movie out of American cinemas. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Resident: (John Ottman) Depraved sex acts in low budget horror movies are nothing new, but the debut of Antti Jokinen in the director's chair for 2011's The Resident seems like the thriller outline that holds the movie together was simply an excuse for showing plenty of naked rubbing, consensual and non-consensual sex, voyeurism, finger sucking, roofies in use, and, most excessively, male masturbation on women's clothing. Nobody should be really be surprised that this, part of the newest resurrection of Hammer Films Productions for the 21st Century, has plenty of cheap scares and fleshy misbehavior in its contents, but what does baffle the mind is the involvement of Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank in the lead role. Granted, new Hammer folks pledged to spend $50 million on a new line of horror movies a few years prior, and a paycheck is a paycheck, but what exactly possesses Swank when she periodically takes these awful fright-fest roles? In The Resident, she plays a successful New York surgeon who is lured into buying an apartment that is actually a peep show construct for its landlord. After the surgeon first leads on the landlord and screws the seemingly confused man, she decides to reconcile with her former lover and screw him instead. That latter development doesn't go over well with the landlord, who not only watches all of these events through secret passageways, but regularly enters her apartment to evacuate his testicle sack on her clothes or hide under bed and moisten her fingers while she slumbers. Eventually, he kills the other lover and sedates and rapes the woman (all on video surveillance, of course), but despite her many mistakes in life, she earns salvation by discovering the landlord's secret perversions and taking a nail gun to the hapless chap. If that plot stirs your loins enough to pique your interest in The Resident, at least you'll encounter sci-fi/fantasy favorites Christopher Lee and Nana Visitor in supporting roles. The movie was so awful and sexually impure that it was released directly to DVD in America after initial hopes of a theatrical release (which inexplicably happened in Europe). While composer John Ottman was involved with some truly terrible horror films throughout the first two decades of his career, few, if any, are as embarrassing as The Resident, and one has to wonder why he was also tempted by this production for any artistic reason. The compensation couldn't have been that spectacular, especially after you listen to the results of his efforts. What you are reading represents the 31st review of an Ottman score at Filmtracks, and this is the first time he has receive only a single star for any one of his efforts. In previous situations of similarly challenging horror assignments, Ottman has been able to at least infuse some interesting instrumental or melodic element, often in the form of a palatable primary theme a la Christopher Young. For The Resident, there's really nothing of value from start to finish, regardless of the composer's attempts to adhere to some his basic formulas. The ensemble does include the fictitious "Menegroth Philharmonic," which could damn well consist completely of samples and make little difference. Strings are the most common representation of fleeting warmth in the score, though occasional clarinet and oboe sounds are employed. No Ottman score would be complete without some keyboarded element as well, the piano heard sometimes in this work but often replaced by creepier tones. And then there's the sound design, and a truck load of it exists in The Resident. Ottman doesn't typically go the route of pure sound design, but he dabbles in it here, and the results are so obnoxious that they're actually laughable in a few cues. Manipulation of sounds is really the primary identity of this score, vague plucking, thumping, clanking, and other unpleasant noises (including the strings) manipulated and presented in continuous layers of dreadful atmosphere. When these sounds bumble along most aggressively in their bed of dissonant haze, the score actually becomes unintentionally funny. Both "Weak Man" and "Nail Gun" have smirk-inducing noises in them, but "Dinner Date" could actually make a listener suffer a giggle-fit. It will remind any former class clown of those days as a kid when such funny noises were perfect for disrupting the classroom. For those not interested in wackier stabs at sound design from Ottman, then you'll have far more difficulty appreciating his theme for the movie. The series of desolate, paired notes, usually in formations of four, is typically performed lifelessly on keyboard in its few appearances, though a somewhat rowdy rendition on strings in "End Titles" represents an overdue infusion of attitude into the wayward score. Summarizing the idea well is "Theme From The Resident" at the outset of the album, though the tentative and troubled nature of the melody won't make it a candidate for inclusion on an Ottman horror theme playlist. The best option from The Resident for such inclusion is the actual "Main Titles," which adds some deliberate bass thumping and string chops for the score's only truly interesting passage. There are times later in the work where Ottman tries to insert some convincing orchestral tonality, especially in "Erection Dejection," but all too often, the score devolves into a wasteland of ambient muck. Some of the wacky, twisted noises that the composer conjures are admirably discomforting, but you know something's wrong when they yield outright laughter. * Track Listings:
Total Time: 48:24
All artwork and sound clips from The Resident are Copyright © 2011, Pale Blue Ltd. 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 1/13/12, updated 1/13/12. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2012-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
