Silva Screen releases ultimate Halloween soundtrack box set – The Definitive Horror Music Collection

October 23, 1:50 AMSoundtracks ExaminerMark Morton

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Those tireless folks over at Silva Screen in the UK have recently unleashed another monstrous four-CD collection, this time paying homage to the wide world of horror, simply entitled The Definitive Horror Music Collection. Featuring music from 60 films across 87 years of horror music, this set is the ideal companion to your Halloween festivities.

Within this four-disc sonic grimoire, you’ll find seven cuts inviting aliens, eight conjuring ghosts, eight spouting of Hell and the Devil, nine awakening vampires, nine warning of monsters, eleven luring cold-blooded killers, and another eight smacking of zombies, mummies and other paranormal activity!

A charming package, organized in reverse-chronological order, The Definitive Horror Music Collection culls themes not just from the expected, traditional horror films, but also unearths music from many lesser known and rare movies. (Scroll to the end of this feature for the full track listing.)

Some film score purists and diehard score collectors often speak ill of Silva for not recreating the original score pieces precisely as they were in the film. However, this collection, in many respects actually IMPROVES upon the original recordings – amplifying particular moments in the arrangements and dramatically enhancing the percussion on others.

We were lucky enough to secure some time with Silva Screen Records’ New Media Manager, Producer, and Compiler Rick Clark, who elaborates further on this massive undertaking. Enjoy!

What was your role in putting the box set together?

I chose the tracks and commissioned the team to record the most up-to-date ones.

Are these all new recordings, or are some of these tracks culled from previous Silva releases?

As you probably know, we do recompile stuff from time to time. A lot of it is quite old material, but I felt we could spread out some of that older stuff, like the Hammer material, which is quite old, and bring everything up to date. The most up-to-date one was Drag Me To Hell.

I was surprised to see that on there, actually, since it is so new.

Well, Christopher Young sent us the scores for that one, and he was quite keen for a recording to be out there, because I think this was all happening at the same time as the delay with the original soundtrack. So I thought it would be a really good opportunity to get that out there.

So why have you never attempted anything this expansive before? Your four-disc sets have always been something I look forward to checking out, and a horror set seems like a no-brainer.

Well, we did have a double-disc set, called A History of Horror: From Nosferatu to The Sixth Sense, which was released in 2000 [now out-of-print]. But our four-CD sets seem to be quite popular, and earlier this year, we just decided to start compiling this. And it seems to be getting quite a good reaction. It just seems like a good format to put a lot of material out there. The John Williams one we did in 2003 was probably our most popular.

Well, it is a fantastic anthology, going from your standard “must-haves” to a bunch of lesser known, and even never-before-released pieces of music.

Yeah, I tried to make it as eclectic as possible, and try to cover as many bases. It’s actually quite tricky to go back and decide which tracks to use. Because when you’ve got so much material from which to choose, it’s quite tricky to make those decisions as to what should be considered “definitive.”

Who came up with the idea of organizing it reverse-chronologically?

That was me, actually. It just made sense for commercial reasons, because if someone picks it up, and the first things they see are Drag Me To Hell, Twilight, that stuff is pretty popular right now. And then you work your way to the bottom end of it, you’ll find stuff that is not so popular, and a little more underground.

But as you listen to it, it also works very well as a complete listening experience. The 1983-1977 disc is quite eclectic; you’ve got the synth stuff all grouped together.

Now, there’s one track on there from a film I’ve never heard of, called Let the Right One In.

Oh, that’s a Swedish vampire movie. It’s quite good. I heard they are remaking it for the states with a different name. I think it’s going to be called Let Me In. If you get an opportunity, I highly recommend you check out the original.

And then you have the Dexter theme song on there, which I thought was really funny. Because, although it’s a dark, morbid show, I see it as more of a black comedy.

Fair enough; it’s a good theme, though. We like Rolfe Kent’s stuff here. We did the Sideways soundtrack some time ago. [Silva has also recently released his scores for 17 Again and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.]

As well, you’ve got some music from The Mummy Returns, which I never looked at as a horror movie at all. It was more of an adventure/fantasy.

Yeah, that’s the thing isn’t it. Sometimes these movies end up in a bit of a gray area, but I really liked the theme and felt it belonged on there. But no, it’s not horror, if you’re being strict about it.

Another thing that really draws me to Silva box set compilations is that you often go out of your way to include music from soundtracks that are either incredibly rare or were previously unavailable on CD. So it pleased me to no end to see that you put a rendition of the Predator theme on Disc Two, because that soundtrack is impossible to get ahold of [unless you illegally download it].

Yeah, there was a bit of an issue with that one, actually. Varese put that out years ago, right? It is a mega-popular piece of music, and it is another of my favorite themes. Silvestri just fit that film so well. It’s a shame that they don’t reissue it, but it’s probably a matter of reuse fees and whatnot.

On a similar token, you included John Williams’ theme music from The Fury, which is another obscene rarity.

Oh yeah, that’s a brilliant piece of music. Is The Fury really not available now? Oh well, it is a great piece of music, though.

My favorite ones on the set are Discs Three and Four, because there was a definite evolution and experimentation in horror film music. On one hand, you had very primal, minimalistic scores, often relying on one to four primary instruments, and on the other end, you have the elegant, epic, “old Hollywood,” stylish and grandiose mega-scores.

I think my favorite on Disc Three is the track from Dressed To Kill, “The Gallery.” It is quite beautiful. But that is a strange disc, because you go from “Bad to the Bone,” which is quite well known, to The Fog and all that synth stuff, which was very effective in the films.

I want to mention the Phantasm theme, because that one is also very rare.

Yeah, that was actually one of the new recordings we did for this album.

Now, Phantasm is another one that is out-of-print, and I’m sure Silva released it on CD in the early 1990s.

Yeah, we did, a long, long time ago. God, that was before I was even here. It’s probably worth looking at doing that one again, because it was quite a popular title. Those films have a massive cult following, don’t they.

Were there any cuts you wanted to include in this set but couldn’t due to rights and permission issues?

No, those problems don’t really tend to crop up. There are a few I would have liked to do, but didn’t. I wanted to do something from Evil Dead I & II to finish the series, but the budget and recording time didn’t allow for it. It’s also quite unusual music. It is something I still would like to record, but they are really tricky to get ahold of.

The only reason I brought it up, is because on the “classic disc,” Disc Four, I was expecting to see some entries from The Wolf Man, the original Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, or even The Blob.

Again, you can spend ages looking at the different track listings you could do. I spent so much time configuring that listing. We’ve got loads of horror stuff in our catalogue, but if you stuck to that aspect, we could end up with another disc with nothing but Hammer Horror stuff on it.

That reminds me, what’s the status of your Hammer catalogue? That stuff is really difficult to get ahold of in the States. And to my knowledge, the only thing available from Horror of Dracula is a five-cue suite!

We put out a 2-CD set of Hammer material [Hammer: The Studio That Dripped Blood] in 2002. It will be interesting to see if someone does re-release a lot of that classic material. I know GDI Records has a lot of it. But a lot of those scores are very difficult to track down, because they’re so old.

I’m glad someone is enjoying CD 4, because it’s an odd mix of music, and I suppose you really have to be a fan of those films to get into it. Some of that material is very tricky to listen to.

Well, it’s a great mix! Not only do you have music from Steven Spielberg’s first movie (Duel), but you’ve also included a straight-up comedy, Young Frankenstein!

Well, that just had to go on there, didn’t it? Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite movies. It’s a shame we couldn’t recreate “Putting on the Ritz” for it. But it was good fun to re-record these pieces. You couldn’t ask for a better job really, to try to recreate these moments. And sometimes it is fun to explore the music a little bit; take it in a different direction.

And what’s really nice is that you have future opportunities to do another four-CD set with a completely different group of movies, and it will still be just as entertaining.

Yeah, well, we have close to 5,000 tracks – it’s getting crazy!

In this whole set, what are your absolute favorites?

I really liked the way the Saw track turned out. I remember listening to the original and thinking, “How the hell are we going to do that?” It turned out quite nicely. But overall, I guess I would say that I’m most pleased with 28 Days Later, primarily because I played all the guitar tracks on it. Also, I think the two Hellraiser suites came out really well. We also received those scores directly from Chris Young, so they turned out quite well.

Oh, and I also have to mention Army of Darkness, because it is one of my favorite scores. It’s just so silly, it’s great.

I was surprised that you didn’t go with Danny Elfman’s theme for that, since it is what most people recall from the movie.

I actually was more impressed with what Joe LoDuca did for that film. I liked “March of the Dead,” but I preferred LoDuca’s work in it. I mean, his stuff was very comedic and fun, and all of the sudden, the Elfman cue kicks in, and it kinda knocks me out of the film a little bit. I don’t think it quite fits in with the rest of the movie. But I felt I had to go with the “Building the Deathcoaster” clip, because it’s such a funny moment, with this kind of heroic music.

So tell me about the rationale behind putting Twilight on there. Was that a bit of a sell-out moment?

Well, you know, you have to be a little cheeky sometimes, don’t you? It’s such an amazingly popular piece of music; it’s crazy. And Twilight mania is actually kicking up again, isn’t it? Have you heard Desplat’s score for the new movie?

I’ve only heard the one cut that is on the soundtrack. The actual score doesn’t come out until the end of November.

It’s “The Meadow,” isn’t it? It’s a lovely piece of music. It’s quite encouraging if the rest of the score holds up to that standard.

Honestly, it’s the one track that stood out on the soundtrack as being the most impressive to me, because it really sounded like the most work went in to sculpting it.

Yeah, he’s done a great job on it. And it’s instantly recognizable as him. He’s one of the few composers working in Hollywood right now whose style you can instantly recognize.

I know a lot of people give Silva flack for not being 100% true to the original recordings, but I really commend the work that you put into these collections. They really are great stepping stones for anyone who might have a passing interest in this type of music, and the diversity of material you put on these compilations, I hope will draw them in to dig deeper.

I have to say that the early Silva recordings were what helped introduce me to the world of film music. I remember before I started working here, I picked up a disc from the Silva Treasury budget line called Thrillers. There’s a load of interesting stuff on there that really triggered my interest in the genre. So yeah, I hope it does help draw people into it, because it is successful then. Everything is in one package, and they’re quite affordable.

So, when can we expect a four-CD Doctor Who anthology?

We used to put out discs of the classic material years ago, but we’ve been having a lot of success with the newer series, and as long as they keep making the show, we’ll keep putting them out. We did recently put out soundtracks for the two original Doctor Who movies, Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. It’s definitely worth a listen. It was about two years in the making for us.

With Halloween in the can, have you ever given any thought to compiling a Christmas-themed box set? There are literally tons of movies from which to cull music, and if you included things from movies like White Christmas and It’s A Wonderful Life (for which soundtracks really don’t exist), you could stand to make a considerable killing.

You know, that is something that we’ve often talked about, doing a sort of ‘Christmas at the Movies’ type of set, but we’ve never really explored it. I suppose we should, because like you said, there is a lot of material out there, and it would be fun to do. The thing is, these are also really big undertakings. The Definitive Horror Music Collection took about five months to pull together, but I think it has paid off.

Complete track listing for The Definitive Horror Music Collection includes:

CD 1: 2009-2001
1. Drag Me To Hell - End Titles
2. Twilight - Edward At Her Bed/Bella’s Lullaby
3. Let The Right One In (Lat Den Ratte Komma In) - Eli’s Theme
4. Cloverfield - Roar!
5. Sunshine - Adagio In G Minor
6. Zodiac - Graysmith’s Theme
7. Dexter - Main Title
8. Pan’s Labyrinth - The Labyrinth
9. King Kong - Suite
10. War Of The Worlds – Suite
11. SAW - Hello Zep
12. 28 Days Later - In The House - In A Heartbeat
13. The Ring - This Is Going To Hurt
14. The Mummy Returns - Main Theme
15. Hannibal - Vide Cor Meum

CD 2: 1999-1984
1. The Mummy - The Sand Volcano/Love Theme
2. Sleepy Hollow - End Titles
3. The Haunting - The Carousel/End Titles
4. The Sixth Sense - Malcolm Is Dead
5. Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Theme
6. Village Of The Damned - March Of The Children
7. Bram Stoker’s Dracula - The Storm
8. Army Of Darkness (Evil Dead III) - Prologue/Building The Deathcoaster
9. The Witches Of Eastwick - Dance Of The Witches
10. Predator - Main Theme
11. Hellraiser - Suite
12. Hellbound: Hellraiser II - Suite
13. They Live - Main Theme
14. Aliens - Prelude/Ripley’s Rescue
15. Ghostbusters - Main Theme

CD 3: 1963 - 1977
1. A Nightmare On Elm Street - Main Theme
2. Christine - Bad To The Bone
3. Poltergeist - Main Theme
4. The Thing - Main Theme
5. Halloween II - Main Theme
6. The Fog - Main Theme
7. Dressed To Kill - The Gallery
8.The Shining - Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta (Excerpt)
9. Dracula - Main Titles/Storm
10. Phantasm - Main Theme
11. Alien - End Title
12. Halloween - Main Theme
13. The Fury - Main Theme
14. Suspiria - Main Theme
15. Exorcist II: The Heretic - Regan’s Theme

CD 4: 1976 -1922
1. The Omen - Ave Satani
2. Young Frankenstein: Transylvanian Lullaby
3. The Exorcist - Tubular Bells
4. Duel - The Café/Truck Attack
5. Taste The Blood Of Dracula - The Young Lovers/Ride To The Ruined Church
6. Rosemary’s Baby - Lullaby
7. Twisted Nerve - Suite
8. The Devil Rides Out – The Power Of Evil
9. Dracula, Prince Of Darkness - Suite
10. The Haunting – The History Of Hill House
11. Dracula - Main Title/Finale
12. Horrors Of The Black Museum - Main Theme
13. The Thing From Another World - Main Theme
14. Bride Of Frankenstein - Creation Of The Female Monster
15. Nosferatu – Overture