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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Scream 2 (Marco Beltrami/Danny Elfman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on the ridiculed 1998 album if you seek just a small but
surprisingly adequate taste of the most memorable Marco Beltrami cues
from the first two scores in the Scream franchise.
Avoid it... on that 1998 product if you desire a more faithful representation of Beltrami's improved symphonic and synthetic blend for Scream 2 and the associated Danny Elfman music for that film, in which case the later albums are the better choice.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Scream 2: (Marco Beltrami/Danny Elfman) After the
surprisingly rousing success of the original Scream not long
before, Miramax sought to immediately capitalize on that asset by
rushing a sequel out to the widest release in studio history. And the
studio's plan worked, as Scream 2, still pilfering the slasher
movie genre within its own script, lured in enough youngsters to
generate a second huge payday. Five surviving characters from
Scream and a convenient selection of fresh meat for this story
are plagued once again by a masked killer in an otherwise serene
suburban setting, suffering phone calls and knife attacks much the same.
The film franchise humor in the script is perhaps the highlight, as the
genre self-referencing was always the main attraction of the concept.
The soundtrack for the movie, however, has always remained a point of
heated debate. Also returning from the original film was composer Marco
Beltrami, who by the time of Scream 2 had better developed his
style of merging synthetics with orchestra into a semblance of what fans
would hear from him for years to come. Aside from the usual interference
from song placements (which, in Scream 2, became the
representative soundtrack album for the movie), Beltrami also contended
with studio insistence upon the inclusion of music by more established
composers in the picture. These deviations most notably included an
original piece, "Cassandra Aria," written by Danny Elfman in his usual
brooding, Sleepy Hollow-like form for the play of the main
character, Sidney, in the story. But more controversy stemmed from the
studio's decision to replace Beltrami's theme for the Deputy Dewey
character with the theme from Hans Zimmer's Broken Arrow. Even
though both ideas borrowed heavily from the same Ennio Morricone Western
twang, the studio claimed that the Zimmer temp track performed better
with test audiences.
Beltrami didn't learn about the decision to keep the Zimmer temp track in the final cut of Scream 2 until the premiere, and he was incensed by the idea that the studio would spend as much money to license one Zimmer track as it had paid him to produce his entire original score. He committed a rookie sin by going public with his immense dissatisfaction, prompting blowback from the studio and filmmakers. While one senses that Beltrami still disapproves of the Zimmer situation in Scream 2, especially given that his music for Dewey was indeed perfectly adequate and more in tune with the rest of the score, he capitulated enough to remain on the crew of the next two sequels, and his material for Dewey would see the light of day in Scream 3. While influences from Elliot Goldenthal, Christopher Young, and Eric Serra sparked the music for Scream to a degree, these ingredients are played to a greater effect in Scream 2. The maturation of Beltrami's blend of electronics and symphony is also heard, especially in his sharp applications of the latter. The increased music budget and thus larger ensemble really makes a difference in the forcefulness of the work, Beltrami pulling more ideas from Goldenthal's sophisticated palette as the franchise became more robust in its orchestral prowess. The lovely theme for Sidney returns, though not as impressively as in Scream 3 and relegated to just a single track on the 1998 album featuring the first two scores. Its introduction in "Maureen Steals the Show" for the full ensemble is sensational. Along with the straight female vocal expression in "Your Lucky Day" and the twangy version in "Joel Quits," you hear the theme tortured on high choir at the end of "Showdown" and hinted during several conversation cues. It becomes quite pretty, in fact, in the flute, harp, and piano performances during the second half of "Sid and Dewey Talk," the composer taking that and other opportunities to twist the phrasing of the theme and even add some additional notes for melodramatic effect. While Beltrami maintained this theme and certain other motifs throughout all four of his scores for the franchise, the general demeanor for Dewey is perhaps the most recognizable aspect from Scream 2, as well as the most maligned. Building out of the style in "Trouble in Woodsboro," the spaghetti Western holdover from the days of Morricone's dusty classics are in full force in Scream 2, and their bass and guitar antics culminate in some synthetic whistling in "Dewpoint and Stabbed" and a powerful rendition in "Sundown Search." The opening moments of "Sid and Dewey Talk" are reprised at the outset of the victorious performance of Sidney's theme at the end of Scream 3. On the longer 2016 album for Scream 2, Beltrami sends this idea off in "Scream 2 Theme" after a snippet of Sidney's theme. For Beltrami enthusiasts, this material has the added perk of serving as a foreshadowing of his superior venture into the spaghetti Western genre for 3:10 to Yuma more than a decade later. Unfortunately for Beltrami, the most popularly memorable music from Scream 2 wasn't actually his. Elfman composed a frenzied, churning, brutal, choral-enhanced three minutes called "Cassandra Aria" for the film, a piece in much demand until its release with Beltrami's fuller score in 2016. It's pure Elfman horror music in its twisted tone, though it coincidentally resembles David Arnold's alien theme in Independence Day in its latter half. There is certainly a distracting element to the sudden infusion of pure, vintage Elfman style into this score. And, again, much of the music for Dewey was supplanted in Scream 2 by Duane Eddy's guitar performances for Broken Arrow, a replacement generally considered effective in the film but, as mentioned previously, rather unnecessary. It's wise still not to ask Beltrami his opinion about that affair. Aside from these recurring motifs, perhaps the most obvious returning element in this score is the reframing of "Trouble in Woodsboro" into "Introducing Gale Again." Otherwise, stock horror techniques abound in the less accessible portions. In general, the soundtrack for Scream 2 features a much broader personality because of all of its disparate sounds. It should be mentioned, however, that the early Beltrami cues in Scream 2, those that reintroduce familiar characters, offer a solid foundation for the resolution music in Scream 3, and some of Beltrami's electronic textures here are actually quite appealing despite their abrasive attitude ("Check Out the News" and "Introducing Gail Again"). The two "Showdown" cues also offer some of the composer's best symphonic material from the franchise. On album, the first two scores were provided together on a short product in 1998. That Varèse Sarabande album contains only 12 minutes from Scream and 17 minutes from Scream 2, one of the label's more controversial capitulations to the fees of the musicians' unions at the time. Without Elfman's track, that album has always been dissatisfying, and compared to the 30 minutes eventually available from the label for Scream 3, this duo album was only barely adequate. In 2011 and 2016, respectively, Varèse offered standalone, fuller presentations of Scream and Scream 2, the latter containing the Elfman material across two tracks but not needing to feature the Broken Arrow borrowings readily available on that score's albums. In 2022, the same label re-issued the 2016 presentation as part of a 6-CD set of all four Beltrami scores for the franchise. On the 6th disc containing bonus material, however, the product offers five extra Beltrami cues of a total of three minutes in length. These tracks contain stingers and ambience of little consequence; more interesting is the inclusion of three additional, generic horror cues by Kevin Manthei meant to serve as the score of the "Stab" movie within Scream 2. On its own, this score is a more engaging experience than that for Scream, but it will continue to pose challenges for those not in tune with the franchise's occasionally unique but often tired horror stance. A custom combination of all four Beltrami scores' highlights into one 75-minute presentation remains the best solution. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1998 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 29:58
2016 Varèse Album: Total Time: 76:46
* composed by Danny Elfman 2022 Varèse Album: Total Time: 87:41
* composed by Danny Elfman ** composed by Kevin Manthei (CD 6 has eight tracks from Scream 2)
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1998 album includes no extra information about
the scores or films. That of the 2016 and 2022 albums feature notes about
both. The 2022 set is contained in an awkwardly unfolding Ghostface-shaped
sleeve, with each CD held within a slim cardboard case.
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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 Scream 2 are Copyright © 1998, 2016, 2022, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 7/21/98 and last updated 3/8/22. |
