Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you are part of the relatively new Brian Tyler fan club or if you love wildly outrageous, massively conceived horror themes. Avoid it... if low-budget, zany horror material (like that which came early in Danny Elfman's career) doesn't interest you. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Terror Tract: (Brian Tyler) Every popular composer has a story about breaking into the industry at some point early in his career, and, for Brian Tyler, the 2000 television film Terror Tract was instrumental in the recognition it would provide him when moving on to the other horror films of the early 2000's for which he made his name. Finishing his second year of scoring films and television series, Tyler was recommended to the directors of Terror Tract, which finally aired on the USA cable television network in the fall of 2001 and was based upon three separate short horror stories. Real estate agent John Ritter introduces the three stories by showing you the homes in which they take place and serving as the overarching connection between the supposedly unrelated tales. Directors Lance Dreesen and Clint Hutchison are soundtrack collectors themselves, and had used some of Hollywood's most famous horror scores as temp music in Terror Tract. They recognized that their film would need an orchestral sound in order to distinguish itself from the plethora of poor, B-rated television horror flicks, but their budget wouldn't allow for a large orchestral endeavor. Here enters Brian Tyler, still a newcomer, but talented enough to make a small orchestral ensemble sound gargantuan. As Tyler states about the directors, "We all had subversive senses of humor," and through their optimistic attitudes about producing a symphonic score to suit their needs, Tyler managed to do it. Recording in Utah, Tyler would write three mini-scores with a small ensemble and assemble them with one common theme. It was an exercise in layering and editing, and Tyler was able to ultimately provide a sound worthy of a feature cinematic film through a base-heavy mix and the wise utilization of every instrument available to him. Normally, the only reason a score like Terror Tract would garner any attention would be if its composer would later go on to become famous. Tyler is halfway there, with 2003 serving as his breakout year. While some mainstream fans contend that his two well-known scores (for Children of Dune and Timeline) were full of cliches and indicated average talent, the work that you hear in a score like Terror Tract is a better indication of talent and hustle in adverse conditions. While Tyler has indeed been primarily a horror score composer, Terror Tract is different from his other works in that it was both smaller and zanier. With a touch of derangement between the composer and directors, the score masks its size by being outrageously conceived and/or masterfully layered. The main titles are a fine example of both these techniques together; Tyler takes a zippy horror theme (seemingly devised on the chord progression of Toto's Dune title theme) and lets it rip into a rhythmic crescendo of superhero proportions. While he does this, he makes sure that every instrument has something to perform at every moment. The flute is a funny highlight of the theme, fluttering around and making noise nearly uselessly while the brass blare in the foreground. And yet, that kind of activity causes the score to become deceptively large in stature. The majority of the underscore, meanwhile, relies of Tyler's consistently harmonic nature to keep it listenable. The stories all have some sort of 'pleasant' situation gone horribly wrong, so you end up with cues like "Bobo" and "The Lake," which offer nothing less than soothing piano and guitar work. On album, Tyler's Terror Tract is more of a curiosity than anything else... a glimpse at a score that probably did not warrant a widespread release if not for the name newfound name recognition of the composer, although the title theme performance is worthy of compilation inclusion. An interesting, sometimes fun, but not overwhelming experience. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 47:18
All artwork and sound clips from Terror Tract are Copyright © 2004, La-La Land Records. 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 7/3/04, updated 7/11/04. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2004-2005, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
