franchise of films, but the productions and their actors as well. After
the huge fiscal and popular success of
in 1982, a
sequel was inevitable, but the collaboration of the same cast and crew
would prove to be daunting. The production process for the sequel was
badly plagued, from the battle for control over the picture to the death
of some of the franchise's key actors. By the end of the
trilogy, four primary actors were dead, including
Heather O'Rourke, who portrayed the famous, clairvoyant little girl,
Carol Anne. Despite all of these real life hauntings, the franchise
forged ahead, and
was billed as
having the most spectacular special effects ever to be seen in a horror
film. Despite these bone-chilling visuals, however, the film suffered
from a poor script, ambivalent audience response, a butchered edit of
late action sequences, and a lack of fresh ideas. (The quality of the
stories in each successive film in the franchise diminished as well.)
Signed on late in the process was composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose superb
score for the first film had been deservedly nominated for an Academy
Award. Writing music for the sequel over the 1985 holiday season,
Goldsmith decided to match the film's increased technical intensity by
himself raising the stakes with his instrumental ensemble. He set out to
combine the best of
, and his
concurrent electronics-heavy scores into one gargantuan effort. When
critics seemingly uniformly pounded on the film at its 1986 release
debut, Goldsmith's score was spared much of the criticism, often praised
for its ambitious achievements compared to other, lackluster production
features.
In
Poltergeist II, Goldsmith added five new themes
to the two that are reprised from the first film, with each of the new
characters represented by a strong thematic voice. The evil spirit of
Kane, disguised as a reverend who offers help to the troubled family
(and played by theatrical legend Julian Beck, who likewise died before
this film's opening), is particularly well developed in the work,
enhancing the character's menacing presence in the film. The score for
Poltergeist II is therefore a piece of music very well developed
in its constructs. By the end of the soundtrack, your mind boggles with
the amount of diversity in the major themes and minor motifs for the
film, and this complexity yields both the greatest strengths and
weaknesses of the work. Much of the passionately personal, intense
attention to two or three particular themes from the original film is
lost in
Poltergeist II, allowing the subsequent identities to be
somewhat watered down at times. But you nevertheless have to give
Goldsmith top grades in his effort to expand upon a set of otherwise
stationary characters. The subtlest effect here is the use of a trombone
for Kane; when he first visits the Freeling family, his motif is
introduced in the form of a distant, dying propeller blade, not chopping
in the foreground, but diving over the horizon in a repetitive, ominous
note. Also in the cue "The Visitor," Goldsmith builds the character's
evil persona to such a degree that the music resorts to outright male
yelling straight from the underworld (and
The Omen, of course)
after four minutes of the suspicious trombone effects described above.
The themes for the mystical Indian shaman, Taylor, as well as Grandma
Jess, are substantial but never expressed in proper competition with the
quality of the themes from the first film. The family's more upbeat
theme, previewing
Air Force One, is a notable positive at the
beginning and end of the score. But the most effective motif for
Poltergeist II, ironically, is the least sophisticated addition
to the equation: outwardly chanted horror.
Goldsmith returns to explosions of liturgical choral
chants like those heard in
The Omen when the ghosts of the
underworld catch up to Carol Anne through her toy telephone (the family
was thankfully smart enough to go to a place where there are no
televisions). While effective, these cues are somewhat over the top
compared to surrounding material. In its first four major cues, the
score rumbles in an awkward stance, not able to provide comfort to the
audience because of the impending terror, but not able to dive into the
horror material immediately, either. Finally, with "It's No Use" (or
"They're Back"), Goldsmith lets it all loose, and between this cue and
"Wild Braces" (known as "Dental Problems" on earlier albums), the
chanting provides a truly enticing atmosphere for the horror. A less
creepy reprise of girl's chorus for "Carol Anne's Theme" (without the
troubling laughter at the conclusion this time) is once again heard over
the end credits to wrap up the sequel. Collectors of Goldsmith's music
will remark that
Poltergeist II is mostly an exhibit of the
composer's talents with the synthesizers. As the composer stated at the
time, he was experimenting with electronics as an additional section of
the orchestra. More than many of his other scores,
Poltergeist II
is explicitly intricate in this integration. At every moment there is
the use of an electronic element, whether as a feathery effect in the
background or an ear-piercing slash in the foreground. The composer's
use of solo vocal effects and breathy, wind-inspired ambience,
highlighted by "Reaching Out," are somewhat unique to this score for
Goldsmith. As in
Legend (composed within a year of this project),
these electronics would sometimes hinder the listening experience in
regards to the orchestral material. But their existence makes sense,
given the poltergeists' methods of contacting Carol Anne through
technology. That said, some listeners may find the constantly rough edge
of the majority of the synthetic effects to be overly grating,
overshadowing the organic elements during key sequences.
At times, the electronics are brilliantly employed,
including the synthetic imitation of blowing wind (and thus passing
spirits) heard in "The Worm" and other cues, but
Poltergeist II
also shows Goldsmith's sometimes overzealous experimentation with
electronics. In their favor, Goldsmith sacrifices the best element of
the first
Poltergeist score: the rolling string and brass motif
of the horrific climax. Even in the film's return to the old house lot,
Goldsmith fails to bring a reminder of this idea to a rolling boil, as
he had done so well in the first score. Thus, the element of creativity
is somewhat heightened, but outside of the outward chanting, the horror
is diminished. On album,
Poltergeist II has had a storied history
due to long shared rights between Intrada Records and Varèse
Sarabande. They released five cues on a very early CD in 1986 (the
former domestically, the latter internationally). This woefully short
album was replaced by a 1993 Intrada release limited to 2,000 copies. It
featured most of the score, save one cue of significance. That cue, the
essential "The Visitor," and an extra minute in another cue, would
finally bring the score to its "Deluxe Edition" format from
Varèse Sarabande in 2003, coinciding with an MGM release of the
film on DVD. With the 1986 products being unacceptably short and the
1993 Intrada album hopelessly gone from the market, the 2003
Varèse album was a good buy. In 2013, the Kritzerland label
expanded the presentation even more, adding several bonus tracks
(basically focusing on choral overlays) and a source track, though the
label did not press enough copies for the demand and the product sold
out quickly. Commanding the score once again was Intrada in 2017, which
released a generous 3-CD set containing both digital and analog mix
options (the digital one is especially fantastic here), as well even
more source cues. No matter the album,
Poltergeist II is too
scattered to match the intensity of its predecessor. It's a solid work,
and it will certainly interest Goldsmith collectors with its integration
of electronics into the orchestra, but the comprehensive albums for
Poltergeist remain a better option if you were to choose only one
of these scores.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26
(in 124 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.29
(in 153,454 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
