PRINTER FRIENDLY VIEW
(inverts site colors)

It is a shame, therefore, that Jablonsky's first major feature film assignment would be one of such a low budget and low standards, following wishes to explore musical territory doomed to fail. The composer's work for video games and television series was perhaps a better indicator of Jablonsky's talent, for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is just as much of a nightmare for film score listeners as the massacre itself was for its thirty-three victims. Christopher Young had single-handedly proven that horror scores can be extremely effective by alternating all of Nispel's sonic requests (dissonant, atonal, subliminal, disturbing, etc) with elements of traditional harmony and melody that, if anything, puts the listener even more on the edge of his or her seat. But in the case of Jablonsky and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we hear the dreaded, precise result of the lowest expectations when imagining small budget horror scores of extreme, dissonant ambience. This score once again raised questions about the fine line between music and atmospheric sound design (or simple library effects), and it is far from being as interesting as New Line Cinema's previous slashing horror entry, Freddy vs. Jason in 2003, which featured music from Graeme Revell that was both functional and interesting when heard apart from the film. What Jablonsky wrote for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is very simplistic, with a subtle motif (it doesn't really qualify as a theme) for the Hewitt house and Leatherface that appears just two or three times over the course of the film. Otherwise, the music rumbles with stock droning sounds of the keyboards and mucks around below the surface of expressive characteristics for much of its length. That is, of course, unless someone's being dismembered by a chainsaw, in which case Jablonsky slams on the synthetic drums and percussive clangs. Frenetic string effects are jarring in their application to these slashing moments, and their use points to a flaw with the general recording. When the score needs vibrant life, such as in "Mercy Killing," the music is held at a distance by a muted, dull recording quality. Parts of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may have been intriguing on album if more of the subtleties could have been heard over the basic, droning, flat atmosphere sustained by murky sound quality. The score is so generic in its cliche horror techniques that the album features a false resolution in which a somewhat harmonic statement within the final cue is battered by a sudden crashing of electronic noise. Overall, between the composition and its recording, this is one mystery best left undiscovered.  *   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Steve Jablonsky reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.2 (in 15 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.47 (in 11,556 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 50:25