CD: Hellbenders (2012)
Score: Very Good
Label: Screamworks / MovieScore Media
Released: April 29, 2014
Tracks / Album Length: 13 tracks / (37 mins.)
Composer: Jeff Grace
Special Notes: n/a
Review:
J.T. Petty’s first crack as a writer-director was scored by versatile Jeff Grace (The Roost, The Innkeepers), and the story’s balance of antiquated evil in contemporary times is reflected in a score that similarly juggles old and new world sounds.
After a furious main title propelled mostly with orchestra, Grace eases in synth chords and processed sounds in subsequent cues, essentially starting the score with a bang before scaling back its aggressiveness with less instrumentation to emphasizes slowly materializing aspects of evil.
“Sutr Loose” is a low-key, kinetic track with an eighties keyboard pulse and rock beat, and “Messiah” uses a slower version of the propellant, with foggy tones and slight electric distortion. Like Grace’s prior horror scores, Hellbenders features some great avant garde sounds, with the main theme twisted and reformulated in several gnashing versions, but the most impressive is “Take the Iron” where any semblance of harmony is torn to pieces by shrill metallic sounds, feedback, and the score’s ongoing motif of dissonance. (“Manchild” is similarly affecting due to the pairing of low, grinding strings, and slowly arching tones.)
Hellbenders is a fairly compact score, never overstating or prolonging its material, and it’s a great example of Grace’s knack for creating horrific sounds that at one time used to be rooted in stability.
© 2014 Mark R. Hasan
Additional Links:
Composer on IMDB — Composer Filmography — Soundtrack Album
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