Budget limitations will always affect some of the choices composers have to make, but it's worth noting how some of the most chilling scores in recent years have emerged from chamber orchestras, using sparsely assembled instruments that rely on the skills of the composer and ace musicians.

One of the most terrifying scores last year was Jeff Grace's The Roost, and though Laura Rossi's music for Shooting Shona is less dissonant and relies more on sustained, atmospheric tones, these scores (both released as MP3 albums from MovieScore Media) illustrate the brilliance that can be achieved using a minimal amount of physical and monetary resources.

Rossi's score might evoke some of the ‘black and white' music in Bernard Herrmann's Psycho, particularly in the harmonically canted “Paranoid Love,” but heavy dissonance isn't a major component in Shona.

“Shona's Theme” is the most melodic rendition of Rossi's main motif – basically a canting two-note pattern that either functions as a harmonic launch pad (which in this cue is probably the most soothing, using much of the chamber orchestra) or an atmospheric pair of pulses, around which hover cyclical string scratches and discreet, electronically rendered water chimes in the chilling “Annie's Scared.” The cue suddenly begins a rapid percussive ascension, but doesn't go much further, as many of the album's cues in this brief score function as atmospheric, bridging, or suspenseful underscore.

“Mystery/Someone's Following” emphasizes woodwinds, subtle keyboards, and piano in the first section of the two-note motif, and while less foreboding than other cues, it's a classic example of suspense underscore meant to unnerve and emphasize a sense of becoming someone's prey in a dark, dimly lit alley.

“Aska's Theme” is a more melodic and harmonically pleasing variation of Shona's Theme,” with piano dominating the theme's two-part structure, but Rossi makes a point of periodically emphasizing discordant couplet in the second half, perhaps to signal something incomplete, deranged, or damaged.

Bass clarinet and some cat-like bass fingering – typical in Michael Kamen's best suspense work, such as The Krays – offers some needed orchestral colour in “Zane and the Chase,” while “Paranoid Love” emphasizes long, unsettling chords from solo and paired strings.

Ultimately, it's Rossi's use of sustained chords that creates some solid tension, and demonstrates how a listener can be unnerved and frightened without the usual arsenal of shock stabs and loud buildups. Although Rossi's filmography is still pretty modest, this is a skillfully written work by another new and talented film composer worth watching.

© 2007 Mark R. Hasan