Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you maintain a healthy collection of John Ottman's music and want to hear an above average orchestral slasher score with a curious, jaunty, pirate-related jig at the end. Avoid it... if all teen slasher scores sound the same to you and some slight Ottman variations on the usual genre equation won't impress you. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Urban Legends: Final Cut: (John Ottman) Few people have been such jacks of all trades with the talent to direct, edit, and score their own feature Hollywood films. Some directors, like Robert Rodriguez and Clint Eastwood, have dabbled in composing and/or acting, but the ability to edit the picture as well gives John Ottman an edge. With his film Urban Legends: Final Cut in 2000, Ottman became the first person in modern times to accomplish all of those tasks for a single studio project. His enthusiasm for the movie was never in doubt; he had already established himself as an in-demand composer and editor, and the next logical step for Ottman was to direct his own feature film (something he had done as a teenager with great, amateur zeal). The process of tackling so many duties for one project left him unavailable for other assignments in a year's span between 1999 and 2000, and thus he was unable to participate with long-time collaborator Bryan Singer for the original X-Men film. By his own word, Ottman was exhausted by the end of the Urban Legends: Final Cut experience, and while he wouldn't hesitate to jump into the director's chair again, there were lessons to be learned from the film. Despite his achievements and talents, Ottman's pseudo-sequel to the 1998 Urban Legends was a total failure with critics and audiences. It could not even attract the teen slasher audience into its mere premise, with most audiences confused, bored, or angry that any sequel (or spinoff) was attempted from this particular genre idea, an idea that was mostly sapped of its potential in the first film. With a substantially new cast, new campus, and an involvement of Hitchcock subject matter directly in the story, Ottman's film and score attempted to reach into the rich, boiling cauldron of slasher ideas and spin a new tale of darkness that would lurk right up Ottman's artistic alley. But with the quality of the film in serious doubt, Ottman's score would be the only redeeming element for soundtrack enthusiasts, and in this arena, he continued to taste success. With only a little over one day to record the music in Munich, Ottman's resulting effort forms a serviceable horror score that lives up to the standards of the genre without breaking any new ground. The stylistic elements of the composition are saturated with Ottman's usual techniques, and nearly every moment of the score is spoken in his orchestrally dark and romantic voice. He utilizes several themes for Urban Legends: Final Cut, as usual, with the main character's 8-note identity featured in performances at the beginning, climax, and end of the score. It is ushered in to the score much like the elegant theme to The Usual Suspects; moments containing the theme are undeniably attractive, but unfortunately the rest of the score lacks this sophisticated edge. Secondary material in "Meeting Trevor," featuring a distant female voice, is the most appealing. The mass of the underscore, and there is a considerable amount of it here, utilizes very traditional, jumpy slasher constructs. Ottman seems to have wanted to put a touch of Bernard Herrmann into the music, especially with the Hitchcock references throughout the film, but his score is slightly too rooted in harmonious structure and modern horror cliches for that sound to be effective. The foundation is very similar to that of Christopher Young's original Urban Legends, or perhaps a handful Marco Beltrami efforts for similar films. The listenability of the lurking and crashing horror hits is dubious, but Ottman's usual light choral and creative instrumental employment keep this one from fading into obscurity. A few special twists keep the score original, too; Ottman utilizes the piano motif from Young's original score in two or three relevant cues here. He also incorporates the "Funeral March of the Marionette," which is classic Hitchcock, of course. Finally, Ottman's "The Tower" has a magnificent, albeit short brass-slurring tribute to Jerry Goldsmith's horror style at about 3:00 into the cue, with a rolling progression that hints of the climactic turmoil in Poltergeist. A generously long score album finishes with two incongruous, contemporary songs by Ottman's conductor, Damon Intrabartolo, and a short, hidden track called "A Pirate's Life for Us," which is a humorously vocalized sailing jig that is bizarre in its placement on this product but still quite entertaining (Hans Zimmer should have paid attention to this piece). Overall, the score is an admirable job and an interesting listening experience, but it falls short of being the truly defining moment in Ottman's career that he certainly hoped it would be. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 73:23
* music and lyrics by Damon Intrabartolo, produced by Deborah Lurie All artwork and sound clips from Urban Legends: Final Cut are Copyright © 2000, 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 9/10/03, updated 4/4/09. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2003-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
