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Halloween
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Composed, Performed, and Produced by:
John Carpenter Cody Carpenter Daniel Davies
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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Sacred Bones Records
(October 19th, 2018)
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Regular U.S. release.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you desire a loyal extension of John Carpenter's
original Halloween themes and style, their reprises here somewhat
stagnant but satisfying nonetheless.
Avoid it... if you demand more than mere production updates to the
sound of this music, the score not attempting much evolution to address
the elapsed time and development for the lead heroine.
BUY IT
Halloween (2018): (John Carpenter/Various) Ignoring
the lore of a franchise as extensive as the one spawned by 1978's
Halloween is dangerous for any sequel, but writer and director
David Gordon Green successfully re-imagined the concept for its tenth
sequel, 2018's unimaginatively named Halloween. There's no
question the franchise had withered into a laughing stock through the
decades, and Green's intent was to ignore all the other sequels and make
his entry a direct follow-up to the original "classic." Thus, all the
plot points connecting the characters have been reset, an unfortunate
but perhaps necessary decision that leads to a cleaner second
confrontation between villain Michael Myers and surviving victim Laurie
Strode. Forty years after his initial killing spree, the psychopath
escapes from confinement, reobtains his mask, and slays a wide variety
of innocent civilians in the process of finding and attacking Strode and
her descendants. The murders, as per usual, are senseless, disturbing,
and illogical, the whole exercise as pointless and stupid as ever. But
the return of Jamie Lee Curtis and a few other original actors in cameo
roles yielded very positive audience responses that made the 2018
Halloween the most fiscally successful film in the series,
predictably launching the immediate planning of another direct sequel.
Such is expected so long as dumb characters fail to check the results of
their supposedly successful handiwork against Myers. Legendary writer,
director, producer, and composer John Carpenter was not only credited
with the inspiration of a cult following for the films, but his music
played a larger role in defining the slasher genre as well. His original
Halloween score was successful in its twisting of the safely
suburban piano into a tool of suspense while allowing sparsely
dissonant, largely synthetic tones to define the chilling atmosphere.
While he scored the first three films, his total departure from the
franchise caused him some antipathy towards subsequent sequels. He
confesses that he didn't even watch many of them. With the 2018
re-imagining of a sequel, though, Carpenter returned as a consultant
and, more interestingly, as composer, aided by his son, Cody Carpenter,
and rock-musician godson, Daniel Davies.
The biggest dilemma facing the music for 2018's
Halloween was its general approach to the passing of time. Should
the score reprise its former self as a method of reminding the audience
that, despite the decades in the interim, nothing has really changed
between the lead characters? Or should that time, and the troubles and
preparation of the heroine, reshape (pun intended!) the score into an
evolved version of its prior presence? A combination of both, favoring
the latter, was probably the best bet. Carpenter, however, decided upon
a straight update of the classic score, retaining the synthetic tones of
yesteryear while beefing up some of their qualities with newer
technology. If you found the original score to be arduously grating,
then the same will apply here. An enhanced role for electric guitar is
the most obvious alteration to the equation, chase cues like "The Shape
Hunts Allyson" and "The Shape and Laurie Fight" likely appealing most to
concept enthusiasts if only because the instrument lends a dose of
badass attitude to the environment. Otherwise, and especially in the
application of the piano and general synthetic keyboarding, there's
surprisingly little development of interest in the 2018 score. The sound
effects used in the loops tend to have a watery personality. The
production quality of the sound is improved, of course, but that was
never much of an obstacle in the first place. Perhaps the more pervasive
disappointment in the score is Carpenter's decision not to push his
themes into unfamiliar territory, devising a few variants to supply
newfound intrigue but only applying them in minimally effective ways.
The three major themes of the original all return, but it's really the
main theme and especially its iconic, underlying 5/4 rhythm that returns
satisfyingly. The rhythm becomes the default device of movement for far
more cues than expected here, which is nice, especially as it takes the
place of the organ-like effects of the original. Fragments of the actual
ascending theme are everywhere in the work. Aside from the expected,
formal arrangements of the rhythm and theme together in "Halloween
Theme" and the lengthy "Halloween Triumphant," the composing team
supplies the theme in full during "The Shape Returns" to announce the
character's successful return to glory. Prior to that, there's an almost
empathetic, lyrical rendition of the theme in "Prison Montage."
In the original Halloween, Laurie's theme was
merged with the "Haunted House" motif in memory, and you hear some of
that mingling here in the later cues. Her theme, after being only
briefly alluded to in "Laurie's Theme," is saved for direct combat with
Myers and the main theme in the final moments of the score. None of the
character's conflict, psychological defeat over time, or perceived,
prevailing victory at the end is satisfyingly developed by Carpenter
outside of the dramatic cello and choral passages of "The Shape Burns."
(This cue, quite ironically, sounds like an early electronic entry by
John Ottman, who arguably recorded the best orchestral version of
Carpenter's main theme for one of these films, albeit in a rejected
effort.) The opportunity for persevering defiance on the heroine's part
was lost. Meanwhile, the stalking motif from the original
Halloween does make itself heard here, though its thumping piano
base is replaced by a synthetic alternative in "The Shape Kills" and
"Ray's Goodbye." In a nice touch, that motif sets the pace for the main
theme in "The Shape and Laurie Fight." The guitar-laden "Halloween
Triumphant" suite at the end provides seemingly endless reprises of the
main theme and its rhythm before offering an extroverted take on the
character material for this film. Carpenter and his team do extend an
alteration of the main theme's progressions from "The Shape Burns" into
the start of this suite as a method of providing a more determined drive
to the theme, though it reverts to classic form after one performance.
Ultimately, the score is exceedingly faithful and will please hardcore
concept enthusiasts with its continuation of Carpenter's original ideas
and general tone. The music isn't particularly refined, its conclusions
to crescendos and cues often awkward, its sampled rhythmic devises
occasionally obnoxious at the forefront of the treble region, and its
adherence to synchronization points not always crisply realized. But
some of these problems primarily plague the album experience, in which
the 43 minutes of score-only material can sometimes drag interminably
despite short track lengths. On the upside, though, Carpenter fans were
treated to both CD and vinyl options for 2018's Halloween, the
final track alone worth the album price for these loyalists. The
soundtrack remains a mixed bag, though, appropriately satisfying in its
faithfulness but lacking the kind of evolution and intrigue to take the
concept to the next level. Then again, that pretty much summarizes the
film itself; you know exactly what you're going to get. *** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Total Time: 43:29
1. Intro (1:14)
2. Halloween Theme (3:02)
3. Laurie's Theme (0:44)
4. Prison Montage (2:46)
5. Michael Kills (0:33)
6. Michael Kills Again (3:45)
7. The Shape Returns (3:32)
8. The Bogeyman (1:06)
9. The Shape Kills (0:50)
10. Laurie Sees the Shape (1:13)
11. Wrought Iron Fence (0:47)
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12. The Shape Hunts Allyson (0:58)
13. Allyson Discovered (1:26)
14. Say Something (3:02)
15. Ray's Goodbye (1:39)
16. The Shape is Monumental (1:57)
17. The Shape and Laurie Fight (1:54)
18. The Grind (1:52)
19. Trap the Shape (2:10)
20. The Shape Burns (1:31)
21. Halloween Triumphant (7:28)
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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