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Employing a nearly a full orchestra (minus trumpets), Shore uses the ensemble as a noise-generating machine to create a range of sounds from spooky ambience to grinding horror. He never unleashes the ensemble into a distinct or crashing motif, but rather instructs his beastly creation to simmer underneath the surface for the entire film. Instead of allowing an array of synthesizers to produce largely the same effect, Shore uses the ensemble's size in its lower regions as an even more gut-wrenching instrument of terror. The constant bass strings, low woodwinds, and brass produce a sinking feeling in the stomach of the listener from the start to end. Some of this material will remind listeners of the tone for Isengard in the famous Tolkien adaptations, especially when Shore adds the element of clanging percussion (as in "Zone 19 Disabled"). If you want to look for even more similarities between the two works, you'll hear a faintly heroic motif in "Castle Keep" that sounds like a merging of the Isengard and Rohan themes. Such slight similarities are understandably inevitable. The score lacks a strong thematic identity in traditional respects, although the main title sequence offers a Herrmann-like plucked and chopped string idea that only resurfaces with any significance in "Fourth Floor Hallway." Despite the slightly more harmonic nature of this title cue, the attitude of the chopping violin motif is a prelude to the prickly sense of unease that would inhabit the mood for the rest of the score. The closer danger comes to the homeowner and her daughter, the more pronounced the single strikes of these strings become. Still, while the texture is intriguing in parts and the ominous tone of the work is effective in a functional sense, Shore leaves little memorable material to occupy an album. To some casual ears, the score for Panic Room will seem (from beginning to end) to be an exercise in sound design. And acknowledging what Shore enthusiasts attempt to say about the development of complex layers in this score, there is something to be said about using the rumbling power of an unguided ensemble to raise fear without overtly sophisticated measures. On album, Panic Room doesn't offer much for the listener, and the choice to release the score at all was likely a reaction to the composer's popularity immediately after his Oscar win (and continued success) for the first The Lord of the Rings entry. Even for the sake of mood-building, the score's presentation on album is too short and underdeveloped to translate into a substantially interesting listening experience.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Howard Shore reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.56 (in 25 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.32 (in 101,260 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 30:09