WITHIN THE ROCK – Rod Gammons & Tony Fennell

A low budget made-for-TV movie from 1996, Within The Rock follows a specialized team of miners who are assembled for a mission and sent into space to land on a moon/comet/asteroid that has been discovered to be heading on a collision course towards Earth. Their job is to divert the object out of harm’s way by planting and detonating explosives. However, they accidentally set free an alien creature that begins to pick off the group one-by-one. Now the team must fight to survive AND save the world. The score for this poorly received movie is written by composers Rod Gammons and Tony Fennell (the latter briefly fronted UK band Ultravox in the early nineties).

Within The Rock is almost exclusively made up of atmospheric music that has little in the way of cohesive dramatic content. There’s not much that’s memorable save for the nods to music from other movies.

HOUSE OF THE GORGON – Reber Clark

House of the Gorgon follows a young woman who travels with her mother to marry her university sweetheart. En route they meet a mysterious priest who knows a dark secret: the house where they are all due to stay is also the home to two Gorgon sisters who seek eternal youth via the sacrifice of virgin blood. The movie is a nod to Hammer Film’s The Gorgon (director Joshua Kennedy’s favourite movie) and is filmed in the style of the classic films of the Hammer studio. The movie is notable for starring four notable Hammer film veterans: Christopher Neame, Veronica Carlson, Martine Beswicke and Caroline Munro (the latter two actors playing the Gorgon sisters). The movie is scored by Reber Clark whose other works include the music for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s Dark Adventure Radio Theatre.

RÖKKUR – Einar Sv. Tryggvason

An atmospheric Icelandic thriller from 2017, Rökkur (Rift) has Gunnar approaching middle age and who has split from a relationship with the younger Einar. Sometime later Gunnar receives a worrying phone call from Einar. Concerned for Einar’s safety, Gunnar travels to his ex-partner’s isolated family cabin. As well as going back over old unresolved issues they begin to realise that someone else may be creeping about at night. The score is written by Icelandic composer Einar Sv. Tryggvason.

By all accounts Rökkur is a film that is dominated by grief and isolation. It is set against the icy and bleak – but beautiful – backdrop of dramatic Icelandic landscapes. The music certainly reflects this mood with most of the instrumentation never really sounding anything other than creepy and unsettling.

LOST PLATOON – Mark Mancina

Lost Platoon is a very cheap 1990 action-horror movie that has been likened to a hybrid of The Lost Boys/Near Dark and Platoon. A war journalist finds a group of soldiers who turn out to have taken part in various wars throughout the centuries – because they are vampires. The vampires discover an evil warlord foe in Nicaragua who is also a vampire and a battle ensues. Probably forgotten as a movie not long after it was released, its profile has been resurrected by a digital release of the score composed by Mark Mancina, with additional contributions from Tim James and Steve McClintock.

Lost Platoon is a muddled mess of cheesy synths and drum pads of various kinds that are seemingly thrown together without much thought to create a soundtrack that’s pretty much devoid of any emotional worth. Disarmingly, the album opens positively with a piano-led theme which features some encouraging support from synth chords and percussion (“Lost Platoon (Opening Theme)”).

FÖRGÄT MIG EJ – Måns Saari Jonsson

The appearance of a music box in a movie rarely bodes well, and this appears to hold true for Förgät mig ej, a Swedish drama which has what appears to be supernatural overtones. Written and directed by Måns Saari Jonsson, Förgät mig ej (Forget Me Not) focuses on Emma, a young doctor who works at a children’s hospital and who has just returned to work after a family tragedy. She befriends young Timmy (owner of the music box) who has just lost his parents in a car accident. When Timmy mysteriously vanishes in the middle of the night, Emma must search the deserted corridors of the hospital in an attempt to find him.

Förgät mig ej is a low budget independent film and, as well as writing and directing, Jonsson has also composed the music, providing a strongly thematic score that is infused with sadness and beauty.

SPRING – Torin Borrowdale

Spring is a short, animated film produced by Blender Animation Studio which has been produced to showcase the capabilities of Blender’s open-source computer graphics software. The movie follows a shepherd girl and her dog as they come face-to-face with some ancient spirits. Director Andreas Goralczyk (who also wrote the story) has created a world that looks gorgeous and which has a feel of folklore running through it and mystery and a sprinkling of humour added for good measure. The film is strongly supported by a score written by Torin Borrowdale (who previously scored the 2018 thriller Searching).

Borrowdale’s music adds much of the fantasy feel of Spring with wordless female vocals, Thomas Newman-esque piano, expressive fiddle and celeste. The solo fiddle is the strongest aspect of the score and gives a Celtic feel to Spring’s world.

MINE 9 – Mauricio Yazigi

Mine 9 is a survival thriller that follows a group of miners who work two miles under their Appalachian hometown. The miners know that conditions underground are not safe but they must risk their lives for the sake of a job or starve. Film reviews have noted director Eddie Mensore’s vivid depiction of the hardships faced by the workers as well as the dire claustrophobic conditions they must endure. A methane explosion below-ground traps the 9 men and they have limited time to make their escape as oxygen levels dwindle. The film’s soundtrack features a number of traditional and newly-composed songs that help to give the film a sense of place, but this review focuses on the original music score written by Chilean composer, Mauricio Yazigi.