Filmtracks: Blue Beetle (Bobby Krlic)

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Written 9/10/23

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Buy it... if you seek insufferably awful film music for the expressed purpose of causing wild animals to maim and destroy symbols of humanity.

Avoid it... even if you don't stock Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait de Parfum in your master lavatory.

Blue Beetle: (Bobby Krlic) Among the countless superhero spinoffs seeking hefty monetary gains for its studios, DC Comics character Blue Beetle receives his cinematic origins story in 2023. Largely disconnected from the rest of the universe on screen, Blue Beetle shows how a typical Latino family can be upended by the transformation of Jaime Reyes into Blue Beetle after an "unlikely" series of events that begins in Antarctica, where evil, corporate scum plunder an ancient alien artifact that can merge with a human host to yield superpowers. Naturally, the artifact ends up in a Big Belly Burger to-go box and, much to the consternation of Susan Sarandon as the baddie, Jamie and his family discover a new calling. As predictable, there previously had been another Blue Beetle in the family of the villain, and the search continues for what happened to that poor bastard. With its Spanglish tilt and somewhat retro styling at times, Blue Beetle promised more originality than it delivered, generating moderately warm critical and audience responses but failing to really catch on. One of the more intriguing aspects of the film was the hiring of British musician Bobby Krlic, better known as his stage name, The Haxan Cloak, for original score duties. While Krlic had produced a number of film, television, and video game scores over the previous ten years, he had been best known for his 2019 work for Midsommar, which featured some intriguingly dramatic horror highlights. Krlic's style is generally acoustic but darkly brooding and atonal, and expectations were high that he could meld his instrumental sound design tendencies with a touch of Hispanic flair for Blue Beetle. That sadly did not happen, though, with the composer's strategy instead relying heavily upon aspects of grunge and electronic dance music as infusions into 1980's synthetic and orchestral blends, most of it deeply manipulated and dissonant. Krlic's attempt at a superhero score may have been guided by the same desire that sank Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' concurrent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem; the stylish vigor and authenticity of Daniel Pemberton's Spider-Verse music is proving challenging for others to emulate.

Film scores rarely achieve such horrendous levels of wretchedness that they encourage animal testing, but Krlic's Blue Beetle merited such expenditure. Testing on random human subjects is too difficult when factoring the legal waivers necessary to gauge mental trauma caused by terrible sounds. Instead, with the generous donations of Filmtracks readers, the effects of this score were studied on a 354-kilogram (780-pound), male Ursus arctos horribilis, a grizzly bear. The specimen was captured in the Mission Mountains of Western Montana and taken to a special sound room for large animals in the nearby town of Seeley Lake. The 9 x 9-meter room in Filmtracks' laboratory is protected by synthetic plastic polymer wall sheeting on metal studs, and it is equipped with 16 Klipsch Heresy IV speakers embedded within protective wire screens to achieve immersive sound for use on the animal. On one wall of the room is a powered, 1992 Dixie Narco vending machine with common human snacks. Standing in the corners of this room are four full-height Bonaveri human mannequins of plastic and rubber, each filled with fluid sacks of non-sweetened, fake human blood that are designed to spray under pressure upon puncture. These mannequins are also plumbed with a spritz mechanism to exude individual scents. The first mannequin is scented with an expensive French perfume, Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait de Parfum. The second is scented to mimic the aroma of a pine tree, with resin consisting of turpentine and a rosin common to the Ponderosa species. The third mannequin emits the scent of foul human underarm body odor that consists of hydroxylated branched fatty acids with E-3-methylhex-2-enoic acid and 3-hydroxy-3-methylhexanoic acid, sulfanylalkanols and 3-methyl-3-sulfanylhexan-1-ol, and the steroid hormones androstenone (5a-androst-16-en-3-one) and androstenol (5a-androst-16-en-3a-ol). Finally, the fourth mannequin exudes the smell of a Burger King Whopper, a human hamburger delicacy since 1957. Each mannequin also contains a speaker in its head to play human voices. When approached by the animal, a mannequin will speak: "Hello, my name is Donald J. Trump. The election was stolen from me." If the mannequin is attacked, the speaker will instead say, "Lord Jesus, save me from the beast!" repeatedly for the duration of the assualt or until the speaker or its battery pack is destroyed.

The grizzly bear was delivered to the Filmtracks laboratory sound room in a sedated condition. Upon rousing, the bear initially paced in a circular path in middle of the room, surveying its surroundings and sniffing at each scent but reluctant to engage despite showing repeated interest in the Whopper mannequin and vending machine. As a control film score, Filmtracks' wildlife biologists played the entirety of Rachel Portman's Godmothered score to observe the animal's reaction to a pleasantly neutral soundtrack at normal volumes. The Portman music lulled the bear into a calm, motionless position as it acclimated to the unoffensive sound. With no pause in between the film scores, staff began playing Krlic's Blue Beetle music. Immediately, the specimen became agitated during "The Sphere," a cue defined by atrocious electronic rhythms and oddly jungle atmosphere on percussion despite the Antarctic setting of its scene. Within three minutes of this maddening dissonant manipulation, the bear charged and mauled the mannequin exuding the Whopper scent. The intensity of the attack was surprising; the approach was so fast that the introductory line was cut off at "Hello, my name is Donald J." before the panic statement, "Lord Jesus, save me from the beast!," was repeated fully only once prior to dismemberment and silencing. Blood from the mannequin sprayed further than expected, covering not only the bear's head and torso but splattering significant volume across the 12-foot-high ceiling as well. During the surprisingly nondescript ambience and total lack of theme in the villain music of "Victoria Kord," the bear retreated into the corner where it had eviscerated the Whopper mannequin. Krlic's thematic handling in the score is especially disappointing, the composer making no attempt to provide any identity to the villains in theme or even instrumental technique. He does, however, employ the Hans Zimmer foghorn brass sound frequently, often to the consternation of the bear. It was reinvigorated by the wildly keyboarded chaos at the end of "Stealing the Scarab" and, in response to the cheesy 1980's synthetic heroism in "The Transformation," the bear stood on its hind quarters and let out quick roar. While Krlic means well with the shift to the major key in this self-discovery cue, as it at least inspired the bear to a moment of good cheer, the tone of his electronics is so ridiculous that you forget there are real orchestral players toiling in the background.

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Krlic offers little creativity in his music for Blue Beetle, but among his more interesting, if not still intolerable ideas is the application of an accelerating tone to represent flapping insect wings in "Stratosphere Flight." The hideous electronic action in this cue, highlighted by a terrible counterpoint technique of two harshly descending notes early, caused the bear to aggressively pace about the room again, though the clunky percussive nothingness of "Jaime Wakes Up" made it retreat to destroyed Whopper mannequin's corner once more. This weird percussive rambling in "Jaime wakes Up" represents a significant missed opportunity for Krlic to provide some Hispanic flavor to the score. (The acoustic guitar intrusion early in "Nana's Theme" is the only slight hint of such a technique.) The pounding-on-key action in "Kord Tower Fight" compelled the bear to approach the human body odor mannequin slowly enough for it to achieve the spoken line, "The election was stolen from me." During the slamming orchestral hits on key in the final minute of that cue, the bear forcibly removed both legs of the mannequin while striking the upper body into the walls. Since the animal did not completely dislodge the head, the false human continued to state "Lord Jesus, save me from the beast!" during the first of the ten generic, wasted minutes between "Ted Kord's Lair" and "Before the Raid," though excessive licking and chewing of the apparatus eventually caused it to go silent. The bear alerted upwards to take notice of Krlic's main theme to Blue Beetle only once it was fully introduced in "Manifest Fight" and "Reyes House Attack." Built from three-note phrasing, this idea is often conveyed on a distorted brass-like effect, but that rendering can't mask the annoying tendency of the idea to remind listeners of John Williams' famous "Imperial March" from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. A single phrase of the theme had emerged at 0:15 into "The Sphere" and 3:19 into "Kord Tower Fight," but the longer, somewhat heroic statement at 0:21 into "Manifest Fight," while a bit tepid on brass, did make the bear start clawing at the walls. The animal's behavior intensified as Krlic applies the theme (with secondary phrasing) over extraordinarily obnoxious wobbling synth effects at 1:43 into "Reyes House Attack." Some of that aggression from the bear was diminished during the slightly tonal keyboard washes of "Heart Attack," a cue with none of the dramatic punch necessary for the emotionally impactful scene.

After lumbering in circles during the pulsating electronics in the latter half of "Activating the Bug Ship," the bear could not resist mauling the pine tree mannequin midway through the thumping, dreadful action of "Bug Ship to the Island." As the victim exclaimed an abbreviated, "Lord Jesus!," the attacker received another unexpectedly large explosion of fake blood in its face, causing the animal to halt its maiming during the mind-numbing pulsations and pitch-meandering of "Leaving the Bug Ship." It stopped and rose to its hind legs again in middle of the room during "The Cosmic Realm," during which Krlic shifts his main theme to the major key one more time on retro synthetics late. This mildly optimistic cue inspired the bear to playful interactions with the vending machine, chewing on the sides of the glass door. The slashing crescendo of "Rebooting" encouraged the bear, however, to outright thrash the vending machine, pausing its attack during "Nana's Theme" in apparent confusion caused by the sudden presence of acoustic guitar. The bear successfully tipped over the vending machine onto itself during "Blue Beetle vs Carapax Pt 1" but repelled the weight. Krlic's poorly manipulated imitation of Rob Dougan's popular "Clubbed to Death" from The Matrix on grinding electric guitar in "Blue Beetle vs Carapax Pt 2" urged the animal to smash the front glass of the machine. Rather than pillaging its contents right away, the disruptive action music compelled the bear to continue destroying the machine's internal parts rather than feasting on its food. The dull, boring keyboarding in "Sacrifices for the Greater Good" and "Now We Can Cry" were a marginally soothing influence on the specimen, affording the bear time to enjoy various flavors of Lays potato chips while groaning with delight. The moment of triumph for the bear was rudely interrupted by Krlic's jarring "Blue Beetle Suite" summary of the main theme. That idea had been totally absent from the second half of the score without good reason, but it occupies most of "Blue Beetle Suite" and receives much of its development there. Unfortunately, also returning is the horrific two-note descending counterpoint line early and late in the cue, the deafening siren-like noise disqualifying the whole performance from tolerance by man and beast. This track caused the bear extreme irritation. It defecated, tore a hole in the exterior wall, and escaped into the town, carrying two bags of snacks and the right arm of the Whopper mannequin in its mouth as it fled the echoes of Krlic's music.

Upon detailed analysis of the grizzly bear's reaction to the Krlic score for Blue Beetle, the Filmtracks team of wildlife biologists and animal behavior experts made several definitive determinations. First, compared to the control score, music from Blue Beetle caused the bear to exhibit obvious stress via symptoms of irritation, aggression, and violence. The composer's shrill, dissonant electronic noises, coupled with poorly rendered orchestral accompaniment, yielded discomfort in each instance. The bear lost interest in attacking symbols of humanity when the music shifted into its many sequences of nondescript, atmospheric noise, however. The staff consensus points to a hypothesis that a direct correlation exists between terrible, discordant film music and vicious bear behavior, the animal more likely to maim and kill humans and their food-dispensing machinery in response to such degenerate aural stimulation. Second, the consistently aggravating nature of the Blue Beetle score caused several explosively quick episodes of animal violence, with no delayed reactions. Espousing no depth of character or emotion in the music, and with little narrative development to generate a longer-term cardiovascular response in the bear, the brutal results were almost immediate and severe. Third, the mannequin spritzing the Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait de Parfum was left untouched, suggesting possible use of the perfume as a bear repellant for humans. Fourth, neither saying "Hello, my name is Donald J. Trump. The election was stolen from me" nor "Lord Jesus, save me from the beast!" resulted in any delay or reduction of force in the bear attacks on the mannequins. Fifth, when selecting food from a damaged vending machine, the bear preferred products supplied by Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc.; it declined to consume products supplied by Kettle Foods, which is owned by the Campbell Soup Company. Sixth, grizzly bears may show preference for Burger King Whoppers over human flesh. Also noted is that the bear in this study escaped prior to two retro-styled, Spanish-language covers of favorite old songs that conclude the album release. For future experiments, the team recommends that the grizzly bear specimen be exposed to James Horner's Legends of the Fall instead. In conclusion, all behavioral scientists involved in this study concur that broadcasting Krlic's appalling score for Blue Beetle in the wilds of Montana could cause increased bear attacks on small towns rather than scare the bears further into the woods. Future use of Blue Beetle music is not recommended. FRISBEE @Amazon.com: CD or Download

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