It is generally not a good idea to form opinions
on a composer by experiencing his work on a horror film. These music for
these films of this nature are mostly wild and chaotic, especially during
the violent scary parts. The same goes for Brian Tyler's music for this
film. While the score has a strong opening, it is eventually undone by the
very genre it represents.
I'll be the first to admit that horror scores
are not really my cup of tea. I really hate it when an orchestra just goes
totally bonkers without any real musical structure, though I actually yearn
for cues that actually head towards that boundary and stop just short of it.
They always seem to be the most interesting action cues. That said, Tyler
has a while to go before he can really control his action pieces. He really
just degenerates the music into absolute noise with synth effects piled up
on top. This causes those cues to become absolutely annoying. I'm sure it
works better in the film, but on CD by itself it isn't much to listen to.
Oh, yes, Psycho is evident in here, though really only in track
seven.
The non-horror sections of his score actually
work pretty well. The opening couple of tracks are actually good, and the
end title is okay enough (but it ends really strange, like someone dies
right at the end). Other than that, however, the music just sinks into
atmospheric underscore for the most part. While the underscoring seeks to
make effective use of the themes, they are so uninteresting that most of the
quieter moments in the score end up becoming boring. Even though the CD only
has a running time of just under thirty-five minutes, it seems to drag on
forever.
In the end, unless you're a big fan of horror
scores (which more than likely you'll still find Tyler's work to be a bit derivative
and conventional), you might want to steer clear of this one. There is no
doubt to me that Tyler has some real talent, but a horror score is really
not the best genre (especially for up-and-coming composers) to demonstrate
real musical ability. **
