Search - John Ottman :: Urban Legends: Final Cut

Director John Ottman (listed in Daily Variety as one of 50 people to watch back in 1997) also composed the soundtrack for this horror thriller about a student at Alpine University who, while finishing her thesis film on urban legends, suffers the loss of her crew members to fatal "accidents" that are too deliberate for comfort. Ottman (The Cable Guy, The Usual Suspects) employs the Munich Symphony Orchestra for much of the score, and his brief but insightful liner notes do a good job of explaining the use of simple motifs to reflect character and tone. It's a sense of déjà vu all over again. The addition of a choir to the instrumental passages ("Disturbing Dailies") adds an air of menace to the proceedings. While the addition of three tracks (two written by arranger and conductor Damon Intrabartolo and featuring a guitar-bass-drums attack) sets things slightly askew, Ottman's scary intentions are never thwarted in the process. --Rob O'Connor