December 19, 2013

  • Campy "Sundown" Makes for Great Score

    Cult-movie hero Bruce Campbell takes on the role of Van Helsing in this horror-comedy from 1989.  Anthony Hickox’s (Waxwork) second film is a tongue-in-cheek vampire flick, also starring David Carradine, where vampires use sun scream to protect them from the sun and to function in a small American town.  The film appears to have been released Direct-to-Video in the early 1990s and many may have caught the film on late-night cable.  Richard Stone (Pumpkinhead, Animaniacs) was at the forefront of revitalizing animation scoring for Warner Brothers TV projects in the 1990s receiving multiple Emmys for his work.  His feature scoring assignments appeared earlier in his career.  The present release is a re-issue of the Silva release which appeared in 1990 through the work of Ford Thaxton whose current label (BSX) has made this limited edition possible.

    There is plenty in Sundown that listener’s can revel in throughout the score.  The opening “Overture and Shane’s Ride” suggests big Western vistas with full orchestral writing reminiscent of Broughton.  The galloping rhythm will shift momentarily to an orchestral style reminiscent of gothic horror music briefly.  The result is an exciting and auspicious opening.  In “The Gathering”, one hears Stone’s ability to Mickey-Mouse a bit while also crafting some orchestral music reminiscent of Goldsmith with hints at a gorgeous thematic thread and brilliant orchestral writing.  The blend of orchestral styles from Romantic thematic ideas to interesting horror and western genres (a wonderful harmonica version of the theme appears in “Night Flight” and there is a perfect “Showdown” towards the end) manages to do a great job of poking fun and some of the other big scores in this genre (one may even here a few nods to Williams’ Dracula—“Seduction”).  More contemporary techniques find there way into the appropriately creepy “Count Mardulak”.  These various elements are well-crafted into a score that works very well on its own.

    The use of the Graunke Symphony Orchestra lends just the right amount of color and orchestral depth needed to create a far better backdrop to this low-budget film.  The result is an engaging score that is a fitting tribute to a composer whose life was tragically cut short due to cancer.  Sundown deserves a place alongside many gothic orchestral scores and is a fitting companion to works like John Morris’s Young Frankenstein with a few hats off to Morricone along the way.