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| Ottman |
The Resident: (John Ottman) Depraved sex acts in
low budget horror movies are nothing new, but the debut of Antti Jokinen
in the director's chair for 2011's
The Resident seems like the
thriller outline that holds the movie together was simply an excuse for
showing plenty of naked rubbing, consensual and non-consensual sex,
voyeurism, finger sucking, roofies in use, and, most excessively, male
masturbation on women's clothing. Nobody should be really be surprised
that this, part of the newest resurrection of Hammer Films Productions
for the 21st Century, has plenty of cheap scares and fleshy misbehavior
in its contents, but what does baffle the mind is the involvement of
Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank in the lead role. Granted,
new Hammer folks pledged to spend $50 million on a new line of horror
movies a few years prior, and a paycheck is a paycheck, but what exactly
possesses Swank when she periodically takes these awful fright-fest
roles? In
The Resident, she plays a successful New York surgeon
who is lured into buying an apartment that is actually a peep show
construct for its landlord. After the surgeon first leads on the
landlord and screws the seemingly confused man, she decides to reconcile
with her former lover and screw him instead. That latter development
doesn't go over well with the landlord, who not only watches all of
these events through secret passageways, but regularly enters her
apartment to evacuate his testicle sack on her clothes or hide under bed
and moisten her fingers while she slumbers. Eventually, he kills the
other lover and sedates and rapes the woman (all on video surveillance,
of course), but despite her many mistakes in life, she earns salvation
by discovering the landlord's secret perversions and taking a nail gun
to the hapless chap. If that plot stirs your loins enough to pique your
interest in
The Resident, at least you'll encounter
sci-fi/fantasy favorites Christopher Lee and Nana Visitor in supporting
roles. The movie was so awful and sexually impure that it was released
directly to DVD in America after initial hopes of a theatrical release
(which inexplicably happened in Europe). While composer John Ottman was
involved with some truly terrible horror films throughout the first two
decades of his career, few, if any, are as embarrassing as
The
Resident, and one has to wonder why he was also tempted by this
production for any artistic reason. The compensation couldn't have been
that spectacular, especially after you listen to the results of his
efforts. What you are reading represents the 31st review of an Ottman
score at Filmtracks, and this is the first time he has receive only a
single star for any one of his efforts.
In previous situations of similarly challenging horror
assignments, Ottman has been able to at least infuse some interesting
instrumental or melodic element, often in the form of a palatable
primary theme a la Christopher Young. For
The Resident, there's
really nothing of value from start to finish, regardless of the
composer's attempts to adhere to some his basic formulas. The ensemble
does include the fictitious "Menegroth Philharmonic," which could damn
well consist completely of samples and make little difference. Strings
are the most common representation of fleeting warmth in the score,
though occasional clarinet and oboe sounds are employed. No Ottman score
would be complete without some keyboarded element as well, the piano
heard sometimes in this work but often replaced by creepier tones. And
then there's the sound design, and a truck load of it exists in
The
Resident. Ottman doesn't typically go the route of pure sound
design, but he dabbles in it here, and the results are so obnoxious that
they're actually laughable in a few cues. Manipulation of sounds is
really the primary identity of this score, vague plucking, thumping,
clanking, and other unpleasant noises (including the strings)
manipulated and presented in continuous layers of dreadful atmosphere.
When these sounds bumble along most aggressively in their bed of
dissonant haze, the score actually becomes unintentionally funny. Both
"Weak Man" and "Nail Gun" have smirk-inducing noises in them, but
"Dinner Date" could actually make a listener suffer a giggle-fit. It
will remind any former class clown of those days as a kid when such
funny noises were perfect for disrupting the classroom. For those not
interested in wackier stabs at sound design from Ottman, then you'll
have far more difficulty appreciating his theme for the movie. The
series of desolate, paired notes, usually in formations of four, is
typically performed lifelessly on keyboard in its few appearances,
though a somewhat rowdy rendition on strings in "End Titles" represents
an overdue infusion of attitude into the wayward score. Summarizing the
idea well is "Theme From The Resident" at the outset of the album,
though the tentative and troubled nature of the melody won't make it a
candidate for inclusion on an Ottman horror theme playlist. The best
option from
The Resident for such inclusion is the actual "Main
Titles," which adds some deliberate bass thumping and string chops for
the score's only truly interesting passage. There are times later in the
work where Ottman tries to insert some convincing orchestral tonality,
especially in "Erection Dejection," but all too often, the score
devolves into a wasteland of ambient muck. Some of the wacky, twisted
noises that the composer conjures are admirably discomforting, but you
know something's wrong when they yield outright laughter.
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| Bias Check: |
For John Ottman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.17
(in 35 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.05
(in 21,438 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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There exists no official packaging for this digital album.
