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Review of Warlock (Jerry Goldsmith)

1989 Intrada/Silva

2015 Intrada

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if even a bland, surprisingly uninspired combination of Jerry Goldsmith's trademark sound effects, instrumental choices, recognizable motifs, and basic synthesized rhythms can sustain your interest.

Avoid it... if you expect Goldsmith to make much of an effort to raise a little hell when a warlock is trying to hasten the end of the world, his understated score a boring, muted journey for most of its length.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Warlock: (Jerry Goldsmith) Movies about the son of Satan traveling through time to spur the end of the world can't be all that bad, though Warlock certainly tried its best to reside among the worst. From the makers of the Friday the 13th series, Warlock also spawned a couple of sequels, but not ones that many theologians would really want to remember. In this original entry, actor Julian Sands is the perverse warlock pursued by a supernatural hunter played by B-film equal Richard E. Grant, and the journey towards the doom of mankind begins in 17th Century Boston and eventually (and conveniently) plagues 1980's Los Angeles. Typical horror cliches, including finger chopping, tongue biting, and a certain flair for sexual deviation, occupy a rather lousy script that pulls elements without much adaptation from The Terminator and Highlander. The movie was plagued not only by last minute plot changes in an attempt to find its proper tone, but the bankruptcy of its studio, which led to a two-year delay in its release. Even after attempts to salvage the project, everything about Warlock was saturated with cheap, 1980's slapstick style, including its cheesy special effects and its badly dated original score. Composer Jerry Goldsmith spent the late 1980's wandering between hopelessly failing projects in the darker genres, including a notable rejected work along these lines. His experimentation with electronic textures in the decade had led him down a path to both his strongest and weakest works of the digital era, and Warlock came at the same time as his least interesting synthetic effort, Criminal Law. But as heard in the also concurrent Leviathan and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Goldsmith was still utilizing electronics in his scores to great ends when he built the scores on top of a solid orchestral base. On the surface, Warlock would have seemed like a project for which Goldsmith could pull out some of his cheesy, over-the-top fun, especially with his history in the franchise of The Omen.

When Goldsmith's humor abounds in a horror environment, the results are often enticing. Such music in The 'Burbs and the two Gremlins films has proven to stand very well against the test of time, at least in the composer's creativity department. Even the score for the Warlock sequel by Mark McKenzie would exhibit some of that kind of unabashed feeling of humor and enthusiasm four years later. Goldsmith, however, chose instead to write a very uninspired and ultimately bland score for the original film, an odd stab at restrained ambience that didn't really suit his style very well, begging questions about whether or not he was specifically asked by the filmmakers to tone back his composition's role in the picture. Your ability to appreciate the musical atmosphere of Warlock will depend upon how well you can sustain your interest in the music due to its collection of secondary Goldsmith trademarks: sound effects, instrumental choices, recognizable motifs, and basic rhythms that carry over from the weaker sections of the composer's previous works. He introduces a flimsy, though easily adaptable theme in the opening cue and works it well into both his suspenseful conversation cues as well as the outright bursts of action, but the construct is so similar to a combination of motifs from Under Fire and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend that its end result is to simply remind you of better renditions of that theme in other scores. Descending, echoing electronic tones from Legend, pipe-like sounds from Under Fire, keyboarded synthetics from Leviathan, and harsh brass tones from Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend are all employed in Warlock, along with heavy roles for the xylophone and drum machine. Some Goldsmith collectors will point to the four or five final cues in the score as evidence of worthy action material from the composer, and yet the rhythmic presentation of these ideas was so much better realized in Rambo III at the time (and with a compelling theme as well) that Warlock remains a collection of washed up sounds even in its most active moments.

The opening and closing cues of Warlock are the most disappointing in the score, Goldsmith's electronics clunky in execution as they regurgitate ideas from Under Fire at frustratingly slow and awkward tempos. It's hard to figure what Goldsmith was thinking when conjuring these performances, because the theme as presented doesn't serve to enhance any sense of terror, science fiction, biblical importance, or even the romantic element involved with the sophistication of language used between the two main characters, a highlight of the film. Occasionally awkward xylophone rhythms only hurt the cause. No convincing secondary theme for the artificially-rapidly aging female star of the film is provided either. Overall, it's difficult to sense that Goldsmith had any enthusiasm for this score at all. He had written monumental music for films about the devil and the end of the world in the past, and Warlock, even more so than the others, deserved a score that could shake the walls with impending doom. Only in "Salt Water Attack" does he come remotely close. Muted sound quality is a significant detraction in the equation as well. Goldsmith sought to save money by recording the score in Australia, and while he reportedly had no issue with the performances, the mix was another matter. So unsatisfied with a channel of woodwinds and synthesizers, he left that channel out of the album mix entirely, and the final film version of the score tampered further with the mix as scenes were changed. Released on the identical, relatively lengthy Intrada and Silva releases long before the film ever debuted, a closer representation of the film version of the score (and Goldsmith's desired outcome) took until 2015 to be unearthed and pressed on a longer product. Even here, on Intrada's 72-minute, limited alternative, the score still suffers from rather understated ambient personality. The music simply isn't likable on any level, and while the additionally released cues (led by the full ensemble "The Headstone") and inclusion of the full mix is commendable and perhaps an attraction for the most ardent Goldsmith enthusiasts, Warlock remains leagues behind the composer's equivalent works. Seek McKenzie's score for Warlock: The Armageddon for a more passionate, engaging experience.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

1989 Albums:
Total Time: 54:43

• 1. The Sentence (4:03) • 2. Ill Wind (2:06) • 3. The Ring (2:16) • 4. The Trance (5:31) • 5. Old Age (4:10) • 6. Growing Pains (5:34)

• 7. The Weather Vane (5:01) • 8. Nails (4:24) • 9. The Uninvited (4:54) • 10. Salt Water Attack (8:42) • 11. The Salt Flats (7:07)

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2015 Intrada Album:
Total Time: 71:51

• 1. The Sentence (4:12) • 2. Ill Wind (2:11) • 3. Time Warp* (1:33) • 4. The Ring (2:32) • 5. Like a Father* (2:06) • 6. The Trance** (6:19) • 7. Old Age (4:14) • 8. The Rope* (0:51) • 9. Growing Pains (5:48) • 10. He Was Here* (2:57) • 11. The Weather Vane (5:09) • 12. Nails (4:32) • 13. The Terminal* (1:28) • 14. A Witch Among Us* (4:13) • 15. The Uninvited (5:01) • 16. The Headstone* (2:39) • 17. Salt Water Attack (8:52) • 18. The Salt Flats (7:25)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert of neither 1989 album includes extra information about the score or film. That of the 2015 Intrada album contains notes about both.

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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 Warlock are Copyright © 1989, 2015, Intrada Records (America), Silva Screen Records (Europe), Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 1/13/98 and last updated 4/12/16.