Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,446
Written 9/10/03, Revised 4/4/09
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Buy it... if you maintain a healthy collection of John Ottman's
music and want to hear an above average orchestral slasher score with a
curious, jaunty, pirate-related jig at the end.
Avoid it... if all teen slasher scores sound the same to you and
some slight Ottman variations on the usual genre equation won't impress
you.
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| Ottman |
Urban Legends: Final Cut: (John Ottman) Few people
have been such jacks of all trades with the talent to direct, edit, and
score their own feature Hollywood films. Some directors, like Robert
Rodriguez and Clint Eastwood, have dabbled in composing and/or acting,
but the ability to edit the picture as well gives John Ottman an edge.
With his film Urban Legends: Final Cut in 2000, Ottman became the
first person in modern times to accomplish all of those tasks for a
single studio project. His enthusiasm for the movie was never in doubt;
he had already established himself as an in-demand composer and editor,
and the next logical step for Ottman was to direct his own feature film
(something he had done as a teenager with great, amateur zeal). The
process of tackling so many duties for one project left him unavailable
for other assignments in a year's span between 1999 and 2000, and thus
he was unable to participate with long-time collaborator Bryan Singer
for the original X-Men film. By his own word, Ottman was
exhausted by the end of the Urban Legends: Final Cut experience,
and while he wouldn't hesitate to jump into the director's chair again,
there were lessons to be learned from the film. Despite his achievements
and talents, Ottman's pseudo-sequel to the 1998 Urban Legends was
a total failure with critics and audiences. It could not even attract
the teen slasher audience into its mere premise, with most audiences
confused, bored, or angry that any sequel (or spinoff) was attempted
from this particular genre idea, an idea that was mostly sapped of its
potential in the first film. With a substantially new cast, new campus,
and an involvement of Hitchcock subject matter directly in the story,
Ottman's film and score attempted to reach into the rich, boiling
cauldron of slasher ideas and spin a new tale of darkness that would
lurk right up Ottman's artistic alley. But with the quality of the film
in serious doubt, Ottman's score would be the only redeeming element for
soundtrack enthusiasts, and in this arena, he continued to taste
success. With only a little over one day to record the music in Munich,
Ottman's resulting effort forms a serviceable horror score that lives up
to the standards of the genre without breaking any new ground.
The stylistic elements of the composition are saturated
with Ottman's usual techniques, and nearly every moment of the score is
spoken in his orchestrally dark and romantic voice. He utilizes several
themes for
Urban Legends: Final Cut, as usual, with the main
character's 8-note identity featured in performances at the beginning,
climax, and end of the score. It is ushered in to the score much like
the elegant theme to
The Usual Suspects; moments containing the
theme are undeniably attractive, but unfortunately the rest of the score
lacks this sophisticated edge. Secondary material in "Meeting Trevor,"
featuring a distant female voice, is the most appealing. The mass of the
underscore, and there is a considerable amount of it here, utilizes very
traditional, jumpy slasher constructs. Ottman seems to have wanted to
put a touch of Bernard Herrmann into the music, especially with the
Hitchcock references throughout the film, but his score is slightly too
rooted in harmonious structure and modern horror cliches for that sound
to be effective. The foundation is very similar to that of Christopher
Young's original
Urban Legends, or perhaps a handful Marco
Beltrami efforts for similar films. The listenability of the lurking and
crashing horror hits is dubious, but Ottman's usual light choral and
creative instrumental employment keep this one from fading into
obscurity. A few special twists keep the score original, too; Ottman
utilizes the piano motif from Young's original score in two or three
relevant cues here. He also incorporates the "Funeral March of the
Marionette," which is classic Hitchcock, of course. Finally, Ottman's
"The Tower" has a magnificent, albeit short brass-slurring tribute to
Jerry Goldsmith's horror style at about 3:00 into the cue, with a
rolling progression that hints of the climactic turmoil in
Poltergeist. A generously long score album finishes with two
incongruous, contemporary songs by Ottman's conductor, Damon
Intrabartolo, and a short, hidden track called "A Pirate's Life for Us,"
which is a humorously vocalized sailing jig that is bizarre in its
placement on this product but still quite entertaining (Hans Zimmer
should have paid attention to this piece). Overall, the score is an
admirable job and an interesting listening experience, but it falls
short of being the truly defining moment in Ottman's career that he
certainly hoped it would be.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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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 3.06
(in 21,485 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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