Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,039
Written 9/29/01, Revised 2/11/09
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Buy it... if you seek a cross between Christopher Gordon's own Moby
Dick and Danny Elfman's The Nightmare Before Christmas, as strange as
that may seem.
Avoid it... if you demand your spooky scores (even the fluffier ones) to
offer distinct instrumentation or personality to meet the rich potential of the
holiday.
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| Gordon |
When Good Ghouls Go Bad: (Christopher Gordon) Launched on VHS
and DVD by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment six weeks prior to its small
screen debut, When Good Ghouls Go Bad was a made-for-television children's
film set to air on cable's Fox Family Channel during its annual Halloween
programming festival in 2001. The film's story follows a prepubescent boy who has
just moved to a new town and is horrified to learn that thanks to an age old curse,
nobody is allowed to celebrate Halloween. He teams up with his recently departed
Uncle Fred (as performed by the always entertaining Christopher Lloyd, appearing as
the only substantial name in the production, and a rarity for Fox Family films) to
drive away the ghosts responsible for this unfair curse. As to be expected, the
movie is a light combination of horror and humor, with designs for an audience
similar to that year's Monkeybone or the more popular The Nightmare
Before Christmas. With the production of the film located in Australia, veteran
television composer Christopher Gordon was hired to conduct a performing group
known as "Pro Musica Sydney," which consisted of performers who had already played
for the recordings of the composer's previous major works. Gordon's large-scale
scores for Hallmark's television films Moby Dick and On the Beach
(going back to 1998) had both received critical acclaim, and the two were released
on album by the same record label that eventually pressed this score. The Halloween
spoof music for When Good Ghouls Go Bad, however, follows completely
different lines than those titles. For one, its appearance on album allows
listeners to hear an upbeat composition of his that wasn't meant for a film that
contains a gloomy and disastrous conclusion. It also allowed Gordon to exhibit his
talents in wacky instrumentation and tender themes, merging the light drama genre
with one of straight comedic parody. To say that this score is a cross between
Moby Dick and The Nightmare Before Christmas, as strange as that may
seem in terms of disparate styles, wouldn't be too far off. Gordon maintains a high
level of orchestral and thematic integrity throughout all of his works, and a
consistent harmonic atmosphere for this one keeps the listening experience on the
bright side of life. Ultimately, however, the score's personality is a little too
anonymous for the subject matter.
The lengthy finale track, extending beyond ten minutes in length,
is rich with compelling symphonic texture and theme, though a keen film music ear
will hear substantial similarities between one of Gordon's secondary character
themes and Mark McKenzie's sung theme for
Dragonheart II: A New Beginning
from the previous year. The mass majority of
When Good Ghouls Go Bad does
not adhere to slapstick cliches too often (for its subject) and is more fine tuned
towards a serious environment. Even during its lighter moments, Gordon's work never
dissolves into the kind of haphazard comedy style that either John Debney or Danny
Elfman could create at the time. For the Halloween spirit, Gordon makes a
significant emphasis on woodwind creepiness, quivering strings, and brass overlays
that will often remind the listener of Bernard Herrmann's
Cape Fear title
theme or the
Vertigo spinning motifs. At no point does Gordon's work become
overbearingly scary, though, which is understandable given the genre, but somewhat
disappointing in terms of gothic potential lost. There are two cues that stand out
as obvious carnival pieces, as they are sometimes referred to; both "It's Mean,
Mean, Mean" and "Hand's Down Polka" are source cues from the mould of typical
claymation zaniness. The first track is an unashamed manipulation of the "This is
Halloween" song from
The Nightmare Before Christmas, complete with screams
and a plentitude of manipulated voices, and it exists completely outside of the
score's stylistic context (as a detriment to the album's presentation, too). Not
entirely without humor is Gordon, though. His blatant adaptations of classical
works in two of his cues are playfully interpreted and acknowledged (or apologized
for) right in the track titles. The primary negative working against this generous
album of music from the film is Gordon's seeming lack of diversity in
instrumentation or sound effects for a project that could really have benefited
from their employment. There is no percussion worth speaking of, no crafty use of
voices, and nothing else that you would typically use to identify a score of
Halloween origins. Overall, the score has about fifteen minutes of subtle thematic
development, with no outbursts of theme or noise of memorable significance, and
most of it will pass over your speakers without much to be spooked or excited
about. Like all of Varèse Sarabande's other cursed releases of September
11th, 2001, this one faded quickly.
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