Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Varese Sarabande, out now

Limited edition of 1500, $99.98

In the run up to Christmas soundtrack specialists Varese Sarabande have released a twelve CD box set that’s going to be of interest to every collector of horror film soundtracks. Whether or not that interest will be sufficient to make their ‘Little Box of Horrors’ worthy of purchase will very much depend on what you have in your soundtrack collection already, and which composers (and indeed, directors) you’re a fan of.

The winners here are going to be fans of composer Marco Beltrami and / or film-maker Wes Craven. Six out of the twelve discs here involve either one or the other artist. Beltrami is represented by the Scream deluxe edition (25 tracks), Dracula 2000 (premiering on CD and a lengthy score with a tinge of the Lisa Gerrards about the vocal cues), and the deluxe edition of the Guillermo del Toro movie Mimic (the music to this is excellent and is easily my favourite of the Beltrami soundtracks here).

The non-Beltrami Cravens are Deadly Friend (a very middling score indeed by Charles Bernstein who has done much better), Brad Fiedel’s The Serpent and the Rainbow (not bad) and Charles Bernstein’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. The inclusion of this last disc in a box set of mainly out-of-print or disc premieres is a bit odd. Bernstein’s Elm Street music is one of the best synthesiser scores of the 1980s, and it’s hard to imagine any horror soundtrack enthusiast not already owning it. For the record, this CD is no different to previous releases, with the same track order (which has always been different to the original Varese LP release) and none of the extra tracks offered on Varese’s recent, and highly impressive, box set of all the Nightmare on Elm Street soundtracks.

Howard Shore’s score to The Fly is another I would question the inclusion of. It’s a great score, but it has been available since the late 1980s in a variety of CD issues, probably the best being Varese’s dual CD set of both this and Christopher Young’s score to The Fly II. For the curious the score included here is the same as on previous releases, with the bonus tracks that weren’t available on the original LP pressing.

Otherwise we have reissues of Michael Convertino’s The Hidden and Jerry Goldsmith’s The Mephisto Waltz (including a suite from The Other) and Jay Chattway’s score to Maniac.

Of the greatest interest to soundtrack completists are going to be the three premiere CD releases in the set. As well as the gothic soundscape of Marco Beltrami’s Dracula 2000, we get Richard Stone’s mix of bluegrass-fiddle-and synthesisers that is the background to Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead. Different from what else is on here and well worth a listen, it conjures an atmosphere of backwoods 1980s USA nicely. The final premier is Robert Cobert’s score to Dan Curtis’ TV film The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Any fan of Cobert-Curtis collaborations will want to own this one, which offers a lot more music than the seven cuts previously available on Varese’s previous Cobert album The Night Stalker and Other Classic Thrillers.

Finally a word on the packaging which, like the contents, has its positives and negatives. Each CD is packaged just like a mini LP, with a cardboard outer sleeve depicting the original LP art, and an inner paper sleeve to protect the disc. These are all lovely and the style had been reproduced even for the discs that never had LP releases. There’s a part of me that would like to see every CD soundtrack released like this. It would certainly make storage easier.

Talking of storage, the stout and hardy black case the discs come in is very smart and continues the whole ‘mini LP’ theme with a box to keep them all in (it even has a handle on top). Unlike the Varese Elm Street set, however, if you keep your CDs on shelves made for that purpose it’s not going to fit there.

Any final words? Well, I feel I may have been a bit harsh but that’s only because the main market for this is going to be people like me who are obsessive about this stuff. Overall this is a lovely box set, beautifully presented and with a fine mix of horror movie music from both well-known and more obscure composers. You even get a nice booklet with all the track listings and liner notes from Randall D Larson. Despite several of the CDs being re-releases this is almost too lovely not to own, and I actually hope Varese do more stuff like this, if only so I can fill up the remaining space in the storage box. 8/10

John Llewellyn Probert