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Review of The Haunting (Jerry Goldsmith)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek Jerry Goldsmith's last truly accomplished
horror score, overflowing with creepy atmosphere and chilling themes
meant to put you at unease rather than outwardly scare you.
Avoid it... if you expect the score to offer the complexity of structure and explicitly frightening bombast of Goldsmith's classic horror scores from decades before.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Haunting: (Jerry Goldsmith) The 1999 adaptation
of Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" was the second attempt
to bring the story to life on the big screen. Unfortunately, remake
director Jan de Bont, even with some assistance from Steven Spielberg in
an uncredited ghost-directing role, did not have the wisdom of how to
scare audiences as effectively as Robert Wise had in 1963. Despite some
outstanding cinematography and set design for The Haunting, a
contrived series of story alterations and very poor acting performances
by most of the leads caused the critical and popular demise of the
troubled haunted mansion film. The premise of The Haunting is
actually quite promising, placing a group of insomniacs in a spooky old
manor under the guise of studying their sleep habits. The scientist
heading this operation (Liam Neeson) hopes to actually study their
responses to fear, but the plan goes awry when he underestimates the
ghostly nature of the house. Sadly for him, one of his invited guests
has a supernatural connection with the spirits of the house that cause
all hell to break loose. By the last half hour of its running time,
The Haunting loses all cohesion and turns into somewhat of a
parody of similar failure films, failing to compete with its better
Spielberg sibling, Poltergeist. For cheap thrill seekers,
however, the movie is worth late night viewing due to its gothic beauty
and an above-average suspense score by veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith.
He was long removed from his most famous days of acclaimed horror music,
highlighted by the outstanding success of The Omen, The Final
Conflict, and Poltergeist, but he revisited the genre one
last time during a period in the late 1990's, shortly before his death
in 2004. This final series of horror scores, ranging from Deep
Rising to Hollow Man, were typically completely anonymous
compared to the aforementioned, Oscar-worthy classics. The best of these
late entries is indeed The Haunting, a score that relies far more
heavily on elegant suspense rather than the slashing, brute action of
the others.
While all of the later horror scores by Goldsmith retain characteristic traits that attract his collectors, The Haunting is a far more refined work, using subtlety and nuance with a touch of mastery that was arguably dwindling as the composer neared his death. For listeners seeking traditional horror in the form of bombastic strikes and sustained pulses from the ensemble, there is one such climactic series of action cues at the end of the film, and it's a doozy. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Goldsmith's approach to The Haunting is the reaction it solicits from the listener. You can never get a clear sense of whether he is using the gliding, whimsical structures of his score to ease you along with the loveliness of the film's visuals, or if he's using that beauty simply to lure you into a false sense of security. The answer is, of course, both, and it's the composer's method of addressing the heart of the film's protagonist (and the souls she saves) as well as the enticingly eerie atmosphere of the haunted house. Goldsmith wrote three themes of significance for The Haunting, and two of them perfectly serve that distinction. The lead character of Eleanor (Lili Taylor) is treated to a trademark Goldsmith family theme of innocence, introduced brightly in "A Place for Everything" and achieving lengthy resolution in "Home Safe." Written for xylophone and flute, this theme not only represents the wholesome goodness of Eleanor but also the lost souls of the children trapped inside the mansion. The other two themes of The Haunting come as a pair for the house itself, one a restrained and stoic, brassy fanfare announcing the immensity of the house and its history. The other identity for the house is equally conveyed in frequency but more memorably intoxicating. The former is something of a menacing holdover from The Shadow, the ominous brass theme opening the film in "Afraid" and dominating the trio of early establishing cues ("Hill House," "First Look," and "In the Dark") before taking on more aggressive tones later in the score ("Green House Tale"). Listen for this melody to inform much of the meandering underscore throughout, shifting into the duty of mystery alongside the more obvious, second main theme. The final and most memorable theme in The Haunting serves the purpose of alluring you into the strange beauty of the location. Always stated with chilling resolve, this theme delicately descends as if caught in a drafty room, starting at the highest registers of the violins and majestically falling to a whisper. The idea is stated first on woodwinds in "Afraid" before cleverly transitioning in the middle of its phrases to violins late in "A Place for Everything." Thereafter, it is a frequent visitor on those violins, its deliberately alternating baseline soothingly tonal and pleasing, leading to an environment that effortlessly suggests false comfort. The memorable helicopter shots of the mansion all feature this theme once the suspense really gets started, allowing Goldsmith to dominate the soundscape without interference. While tepid in cues like "First Look," "Crane's Study," and "Testing," the fuller performances are a prevailing success in each application. The fullest renditions contain a robust, alternating brass counterpoint line during the first of the two phrases that adds a dose of muscle to the descending violins; you first hear this material at the end of "The Curtains" and again in "Return to the Carousel," the latter starting the brass alternations before the descending violin line. Other coldly dramatic, major performances of the idea feature in "Curly Hair," "Theme From The Haunting," "Home Safe," and the film version of "Finally Home." (The latter two are similar but not the same). Some listeners might consider a source calliope/carnival theme to be a fourth identity for The Haunting, though it only occurs twice. It exists for the freaky mirrors of a merry-go-round play room in the mansion, and although this theme distractingly establishes itself as a descendent of both Goldsmith's Papillon and Christopher Young's similar sequence in Hellraiser II, this carnival waltz is a major detraction from The Haunting. While the film has its fair share of frights, especially later in its story, the score doesn't reflect these in much of its length. Only two cues ("Terror in Bed/Nell's Room" and "Finally Home") for explore pulse-pounding, full-fledged bombast, and both are driven by an ambitious percussion and synthesizer rhythm as powerfully forceful as those in the composer's just previous The 13th Warrior. An echoing synthesizer effect in the late horror cues of The Haunting is identical to that used in the action sequences of Star Trek: Insurrection, and it's brilliantly woven into the ensemble as a single performer equal to any in the resounding percussion section. The last half of "Finally Home" uses a propulsive sense of the inevitable that raises memories of the turbulent highlights of Poltergeist, though the incarnation of this idea here is more straight forward and tonally pleasing. The last minute before the crescendos of resolution in "Finally Home" is a spirited exercise in the mutilation of the score's themes. The synthetics in the remainder of the score are adept at giving you a sinking feeling of unease, including wind-blowing effects that go back to "The Cloud" in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but not much more. Instrumental interplay often favors the woodwinds, with even bassoons getting in on some of the more spine-tingling thematic variations. Overall, The Haunting is a score meant to be creepy rather than scary. In fact, significant portions could be assembled into an extremely relaxing listening experience. As with Goldsmith's other recordings in 1998 and 1999, the sound quality of the score is extraordinary, Bruce Botnick's work at the Newman Scoring Stage leading to an album with crisp and dynamic sound while maintaining a healthy amount of reverb. The expansive soundscape especially aids in the delightfully chilling performances of the house's theme by the violins. The original 1999 Varèse Sarabande album was only 35 minutes long but contained all of the major performances of the house's descending theme. It inexplicably placed "The Carousel" at the very outset, though, a critical blunder. A "Deluxe Edition" from the same label in 2017 offers 68 minutes of the score and the previously available album version of "Finally Home." While all the top highlights were previously available, the 2017 presentation is far superior despite the unnecessary combination of "Home Safe" and "Theme From The Haunting" into one track, a move not reflected in the rear insert art of the product. Without a doubt, 1999 was Goldsmith's last great year of production, and on any album, The Haunting stands proudly alongside its more bombastic cousin, The 13th Warrior, as a welcome addition to a collection of the composer's top, later works. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
1999 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 35:14
2017 Varèse Album: Total Time: 74:09
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1999 Varèse album includes no extra information about
the score or film. That of the 2017 contains notation about both but not about the
presentation of the album contents.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Haunting are Copyright © 1999, 2017, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/14/99 and last updated 12/19/17. |
