Search - John Frizzell :: Thirteen Ghosts [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

If modern horror films often feel like they've spent two cents on script for every dollar allotted for CGI effects, director Steve Beck wasn't about to buck the trend on this film equivalent of a mechanized carnival spook house (a remake of William Castle's deliciously cheesy original). Not surprisingly, John Frizzell's orchestral score struggles against those dramatic constraints, operating chiefly in three modes: treacly calm-before-the-bloodbath innocence, percussively creaky tension, or kill-em-all Sturm und Drang. It's the latter ethos that's often so (intentionally?) amusing; epitomized perfectly by the opening "The Juggernaut," it sounds like nothing less than the music for some lost '50s giant bug epic, say "Attack of the Mammoth Sow Bugs." Still, Frizzell's exercises in tension building are often compelling and fairly innovative, employing some unusual percussion and electronic effects to good end--if not exactly music for a sunny afternoon. --Jerry McCulley