Original Review by Alan Rogers (First uploaded at maintitles.net)
I don’t really enjoy Jerry Goldsmith’s scores for films such as Gremlins/Gremlins 2: The New Batch and The ‘burbs. I state this straight off because, in my opinion, anyone who appreciates scores such as these that heavily feature Goldsmith’s use of synths will enjoy Bear McCreary’s score for Chillerama: Zom-B Movie. Those who don’t enjoy scores such as this may struggle to truly appreciate what McCreary has tried to do in this score. Director Joe Lynch’s Zom-B Movie is a “wrap-around” segment for the anthology movie, Chillerama, a movie that has recently been doing the rounds at various drive-in movie theatres prior to its release at the end of November 2011 on DVD/Blu-ray. Lynch again turns to composer Bear McCreary (their previous collaboration was for the straight-to-video sequel Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) and, from all accounts they had a whale of a time on a project that fits nicely into the Creepshow, Tales From The Darkside and Twilight Zone: The Movie genre of horror anthology movies.
The album begins well with the end credits song “I Don’t Want To Die A Virgin”, a catchy number performed by Young Beautiful In A Hurry (vocals by Bear McCreary’s brother Brendan) that features a great little guitar riff. For the score proper, McCreary has stated that Chillerama: Zom-B Movie gave him the opportunity to expand his musical horizon into the sounds he grew up with, letting him unleash his “inner thirteen-year-old” and to go wild composing for this score. McCreary further mentions that he was inspired by composers such as Bernard Herrmann, John Carpenter, Lalo Schifrin and the aforementioned Jerry Goldsmith for the various aspects of the score. Read the rest of this entry »
