Stephen King has had the good (mostly) fortune for many of his novels to be adapted into films.  Some of these have gained cult status and even critical notice, while others tended to fall into horror B-movie realms.  When he published Pet Sematary in 1983, there were 3 films of his novels released: Cujo, The Dead Zone, and Christine.  Plans to adapt this odd story about a cemetery where children bury their dead pets made it to the screen in 1989 and while the film received poor critical reviews, its box office did rather well due to many fans of the novel and King-based films.  The author even has a cameo.  At the heart of the film is also an amazing performance by Fred Gwynne.  The music for the film is by Elliot Goldenthal.  Goldenthal had scored a couple of films earlier in the decade but had focused on concert hall works.  Pet Sematary is often considered as the score that garnered attention of his work and would lead to a host of great scoring projects.

Goldenthal’s title cue is certainly quite creepy with its Dies Irae-inspired vocalizations by children’s chorus.  The orchestral color and melodic shape are all part of a particular sound that would become identified with the composer.  The somewhat Gothic horror music  is a bit overpowered by a forward piano line.  The sudden shifts from lilting waltzes to dark orchestral punches and intriguing textures result in further increasing the tension.  Goldenthal’s approach has its roots in that of John Corigliano (who he studied with), especially in the style of Altered States, and the musical language of Penderecki.  He does still find ways to craft recognizable thematic material though that helps connect to the audience all while adding a host of contemporary orchestral techniques.  Eerie, mistuned piano sounds will help shift the music into unusual territory and continue to keep listeners off balance.  These moments in the score tend to be balanced with gentle lyrical music, like the really beautiful “Kite and Truck” scored for harp, strings, and piano; though even here awful things are not far off.

Pet Sematary proves to be an intense listening experience but in La-La Land’s new release, there are more moments to balance the horror-genre music with more lyrical material lending a better dramatic balance missing on the original Varese Sarabande release.  The new release puts things back in film order, though retains some of the mis-labeled track titles from the original CD are kept to help maintain some continuity between the two releases.  There is a lot of unreleased material here (at the time most Varese releases were hovering around the 30-minute mark) nearly doubling the original issue.  After the presentation of the score proper, there are ten “bonus tracks” of alternate takes and album edits as well.  This is a great release by a composer who would go on to provide a host of great film scores into the 1990s.

This is a limited edition release of 2000 copies.