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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of It (Benjamin Wallfisch)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you rejoice in the challenging sounds of technical
experimentation in music, Benjamin Wallfisch pushing the boundaries of
post-processing to new levels in his attempt to surpass expectations for
a favorite horror tale.
Avoid it... if you still believe that subtlety can achieve greater thrills than brute force, though Wallfisch may still appease you with a decent countering of softly lyrical, dramatic interludes for the mystery of the location and its children.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
It: (Benjamin Wallfisch) After realized with
tremendous success in an Emmy-winning 1990 television adaptation,
Stephen King's "It" suffered an arduously long journey to the big screen
in the 2010's, burning through several crews and casts before director
Andy Muschietti triumphed in transforming the concept into a phenomenal
moneymaker for Warner. The project was met with widespread critical and
popular acclaim, spurring immediate plans for a sequel to continue the
exploration of the troll-like demon clown that terrorizes a small Maine
city every 27 years, as told by legend and experienced by local
children. Oblivious and abusive adults are equal villains in It,
a group of outcast children forming an alliance to investigate and save
one another from the sewer-dwelling "Pennywise the Dancing Clown" that
terrorizes them with realistic, life-threatening nightmares preying upon
their individual fears. It is because of movies like this (and including
Tim Curry's outstanding performance in the 1990 version) that clowns
have become the subject of ridicule and suspicion in pop culture, and
2017's It must only further this shift in perception. The
depictions of child dismemberment and death are horrific in this film,
earning its 'R' rating by aiming solely at adult audiences reliving the
angst of their teenage years. Thrown into the equation is a hint of
1980's mystery and adventure of a Steven Spielberg nature, It
attempting to straddle both worlds as it takes the wonderment of a
child's perseverance and forces it into battle against adult-oriented
horror thrills that include body mutilation and sexual assault. It's
amazing that audiences willingly embrace such disturbing material, but
if it makes them feel better about the comparatively tame misery in
their real lives, then so be it. The relatively even balance between
wondrous mystery, character depth, and outright horror in It
necessitated a hybrid soundtrack that pulls at the heart strings with
orchestral benevolence befitting 1980's nostalgia while also striving
for new methods of achieving the otherwise predictable horror element.
English composer Benjamin Wallfisch has used his association with Hans
Zimmer's Remote Control Productions as a springboard into a robust
career in the horror and thriller genres during 2016 and 2017, cranking
out a slew of such efforts, many of which pushing the limits of
processing technologies in the execution.
Regardless of your tolerance for the horror film score genre in general, It supplies you with much to consider in its highly developed methods. Even if you are not the type of person to appreciate horror music in all its thrashing, dissonant glory, Wallfisch at least provides you an interesting experience in how he achieves this end. A strong argument can be made that there is gratuitous violence in the music's extreme processing that could have been rendered unnecessary by a more nuanced approach. Some listeners will rightfully claim that during an age when visual effects struggle to continue dazzling viewers when expectations have run so high, the ability of music to terrify suffers from the same temptation by producers and composers to simply add more processing and more layers to a cue in order to supply the same addictive thrill. What at one time soloists with a bassoon or muted trumpet accomplished in the genre decades before is now supplanted by dozens of layers of noise processed to make "music" that sufficiently impresses modern studio executives and tired audiences. If you seek subtlety in the distinctions between character warmth and suspenseful thrills, It will disappoint you, but at least its textures in the suspenseful variations on the character half will prove intriguingly unsettling. A standard orchestra is joined by a small group of young children singing an old English nursery rhyme, though that song is distorted and chopped to bits in the process of the score's creation. Some (sampled?) mature vocal chanting effects late in the work are a bit eye-rolling in their grasping at faint Jerry Goldsmith/The Final Conflict glory. Some listeners may believe a synthetic edge inhabits the outright atonal horror sequences, especially in the cues that offer loudly slashing and pounding metallic percussion effects, but the recording sounds closer to a processing of mostly the symphonic performance shrieks into insufferable combinations of noise. The scenes involving Pennywise's infliction of nightmares (or actual harm) on the children are typically met with a cacophonous wall of sound that sometimes overlays shouted lyrics from the child singers for an experience as unpleasant as any in the history of film music. Occasional "cheap trick" manipulations, as in artificial crescendos with abruptly edited conclusions plague a cue like "Deadlights," and moments like this in It, even with creative strains of mixing around the edges, may strain the patience of most listeners. Such material is truly impossible to "enjoy" apart from context in any normal sense of that word. The more lyrical, dramatic half of It is, not surprisingly, where Wallfisch prevails, if only in brief interludes. Being that this film's story is one of character bonding and coming of age, not to mention the mystery of the town's legend, it makes sense to hear some development of tonal ideas. The actual melodic structures of these sequences are shy enough to avoid obvious memorability, but their tone is the more important component to their success. A solo piano performed by Wallfisch himself is joined by conventional strings, rhythmic woodwind figures, and harp accents to convey the themes for the town, the dead boy that starts the group on its crusade, and, finally, the bond those children form together. Opening and closing the score is a light waltz on piano in "Every 27 Years" for the legend of the tale, laced in the first cue by children's vocalizations that waft back and forth in the left and right channels. Slightly optimistic woodwind and choral tones, yearning to achieve the warmth of a James Horner character theme, establish false hope in "Paper Boat," and related material is a similarly soft and tonal attraction in "Derry," "Beverly," and "Georgie's Theme." More urgent development of those ideas in "Derry History" and "Return to Neibolt" offer accessible determination and gravity to the music. One nice red herring along this journey is "Georgie Found," which is intentionally non-descript in its avoidance of the character's prior theme. The trio of "Yellow Raincoat," "Blood Oath," and "Kiss" nicely wrap the character development with the score's most heart-warming ensemble moments. Meanwhile, as the film progresses, Wallfisch seems tentative about how to handle Pennywise thematically, ranging from outright carnival manipulation in "Epilogue" to the choral fantasy awe of "Pennywise's Tower." Overall, the score for It is technologically impressive, its mix highly commendable not only for the boisterous explosions of sound during the fright sequences, but for the clarity of the ensemble lines throughout. The harp in particular shines despite all the surrounding chaos. But those explosions of ear-shredding manipulation are truly unlistenable, begging further questions about whether "louder" and "more complex" are really the answer to horror music innovation. The tonal portions could be assembled into quite a solid presentation given that 87 minutes of music were released for the soundtrack, but even here, Wallfisch does not enunciate any of his melodies (with the exception of one striking brass sequence at 0:49 into "He Didn't Stutter Once") with enough clarity for audiences to be able to identify anything suitable as a "franchise theme" for a concept that was ripe for such connections. It's smart music that didn't quite achieve its aim. Cautiously approach its long album with realistic expectations. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 87:00
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers and notes about the score or film from the composer and director.
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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 It are Copyright © 2017, WaterTower Music and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/26/17 (and not updated significantly since). |
