Jay Chattaway

Intrada, out now

A howling good score?

Originally released in 1985, Silver Bullet was a movie adaptation of Stephen King’s illustrated novella, Cycle Of The Werewolf. At the time, Jay Chattaway was just making a name for himself in synth scores for fairly low-budget flicks for the Cannon Group, like Invasion USA with Chuck Norris, or indeed this film, though he has gone on to become probably best known for his work on Berman-era Star Trek, most notably Voyager.

Anyway, here we have a mid-80s PG-13 horror score, which means a lot of synths, and the Fairlight in particular getting a good workout, especially with faking piano and plucked strings in an obviously electronic way, as well as the sort of background tones you’d expect.

The opening titles are quite light and pleasant, going for the piano-esque sound that becomes the theme for Marty, appear both in “Marty’s Entrance” and “Marty’s Apology,” before the score takes a turn into pure mid-80s Doctor Who style chase material for “Stella And The Beast.” This kind of mix of Marty’s theme and typical 80s action horror synth continues largely unremarkably for the first dozen or so tracks, though the influence of John Carpenter and Mike Oldfield somewhat filters through into “Town Paranoia.”

“The Hunt” is more orchestral-sounding action track, showing some promise of the style Chattaway would later bring to the Star Trek franchises, with a much more flowing beat, while “The Bog” lets the Fairlight have a good go at replicating harps. More interesting at this mid-stage of the album is “Bad Dream,” in which layers of wolf-howls are incorporated, both really reminding the listener that this is a werewolf movie, and giving a suitably atmospheric change of pace that’s actually pretty cool, until the last third, which goes overboard with the 80s drum machine and bad electronic organ.

“Silver Bullet Reveal” gives us another moment of promise of Chattaway’s Trek work, with a nice but very short little melody that he may well have returned to later. “Joyride” is the sort of irritatingly bouncy and now very dated music you had in a hundred 80s teenage romcoms, and hasn’t aged well – even more so in the “Joyride Reprise” part of final track, “Transformation/Finale/Joyride Reprise”, which is a vocal song version squeezed into the medley.

“Looking For Mr One-Eye” is a nice piece, blending a slightly Latin electric guitar with Marty’s theme, and doing it in a way that gives a slightly light-headed feel, and this is soon reused and followed up on in “Making The Silver Bullet”. The action cues for “Beast Outside” and “Fight To The Finish” are pretty solid as well, if very typical of their era.

The original Varese Sarabande release consisted of fourteen tracks, in concert formation, so not in film order. For example, “The Hunt” was Track 2, “Fight To The Finish” was Track 5, and so on. The new Expanded Edition from Intrada has more than twice the amount of material, with 30 tracks, in film order, so “The Hunt” is Track 13, and “Fight To The Finish” is Track 29. Of the best tracks here, “Stella And The Beast,” The Bog,” and “Looking For Mr One-Eye” were on the original release, but “Town Paranoia,” Marty’s Entrance,” and “Beast Outside” were not. In general, though, most of the additional tracks are reprises and reworkings of themes introduced earlier.

Verdict: As a listening experience, basically it’s 1985 mid-budget horror in your headphones, covering all the bases you expect from that period and its instrumentation. If you’re a fan of this type of 80s score, then this is forgotten gem, pure nostalgia distilled to its purest essence. If you like your soundtracks to have orchestras, this probably isn’t for you.

If you’re somewhere in the middle of those two audiences, it is nice to know that publishers are taking the trouble to remaster and expand old soundtracks from lesser-known films – and it may well make you keen to see the film again and see whether it holds up. 7/10

David A McIntee