Remembering Riz Ortolani
With over 200 composer credits to his name, it's safe to say very few of us have had the pleasure of hearing Ortolani's entire body of work, but even just taking in the highlights is enough to illustrate his immense importance.
The Music of Jess Franco
News of Jess Franco recent death has hit many cult films fan hard. Of his truly epic directorial output, I have personally seen a paltry amount. Of those I’ve seen however, a mark was definitely left. Films such as Vampyros Lesbos, 99 Women, The Awful Dr. Orloff and A Virgin Among the Living Dead were important...
BBC Radiophonic Workshop: The Alchemists of Sound
Today I want to share one of my favourite documentaries regarding the art of sound. If you have any interest in early electronic music, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop should mean something to you. They were at the forefront of sound discovery. Perhaps the Radiophonic Workshop’s most famous claim to fame was the Doctor Who theme,...
KTL scores The Phantom Carriage
Victor Sjöström’s 1921 film, The Phantom Carriage is a masterpiece of atmospheric cinema, pushing forward the art of special effects and narrative structure. The mood it created set a benchmark that filmmakers still look up to today. This film provided the perfect canvas in which to provide musical accompaniment, and until 2008, the accompaniment was what one...
The Sound of Horror
Today I thought, rather than pour focus on one particular score of composer, I’d take a little tour of scores from the horror genre. The idea is to simply sit back and listen. I will list the composer of each should you want to explore them further. The horror film is one wherein the music...
TerrorVision performed by The Fibonaccis
As a film soundtrack aficionado, there are times when you come across a score of a quality far exceeding the film in which it was recorded for. I’m not about to suggest that Ted Nicolaou’s 1986 film, TerrorVision doesn’t have its ardent fans. Its slapstick stupidity and terrible alien puppetry were made for cult audiences to fall...
Hausu (1977) – full soundtrack
This is a short post tonight because, quite frankly, if you haven’t seen Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s 1977 mindfuck, ‘Hausu’, there is very little I can say about it. All I can suggest is that you watch it. The soundtrack is just as confusing as the film itself, featuring corny synth pop jingles, swampy blues, woeful vocal numbers, funk and…...
Young Einstein (1988)
It was only a matter of time before this happened… before my childhood was dredged up in this way. The stories I could tell you about me and the Yahoo Serious trash classic, ‘Young Einstein’. It resides in a rare category of childhood film that I was obsessed by and watched repeatedly. If you were...
Lady Terminator – Souls on Fire
I was introduced to ‘Lady Terminator’ by my good friend (and Mondo Exploito founder), Dave. I’ll lay all my cards on the table now (they have topless people on them)… I had never heard of ‘Lady Terminator’ until the day of a much-hyped film swap between Dave and myself finally arrived. He came to my...
Dark Star (1974)
John Carpenter is a name as synonymous with soundtrack composition as he is with the films his soundtracks were composed for. His scores are embedded upon the aural centre of anyone who has seen any of his films. It would be remiss not to mention the enormity of ‘Halloween’, both as a film franchise behemoth...
Harry Manfredini discusses the score for Friday the 13th
I wanted to find a clip of a composer discussing one of their iconic film scores. This little clip features ‘Friday the 13th’ composer, Harry Manfredini reminiscing about the origin of the main theme, which is without question one of the most instantly recognisable in film history. Film composers are all too often relegated to the background,...
Goblin performs Suspiria live at the ACMI (23/11/12)
Last Friday, I was given the opportunity to witness an event that, until then, had seemed like an impossibility. Indeed, for the vast majority of horror fans throughout the world, it still remains a frustrating impossibility. Even saying it now after the fact gives me chills. Over two sold out shows at the ACMI, Italian...
