Demon Records, out Friday 13th December

 

The original soundtrack recordings to Lucio Fulci’s Italian horror movie gore fests City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981) and The House by the Cemetery (1981) get a prestige vinyl release in a gorgeous hardback book.

The sturdy 180g discs in this set are described as being made of ‘nasty’ vinyl, and that’s as good a way as any to describe the lurid purple, orange and green swoosh patterns in the splatter platters. The movies were all caught up in the Video Nasties’ hysteria at the time of their initial VHS release in the UK, (The House by the Cemetery was one of the 39 Section 1 movies to be prosecuted) and one of their most memorable elements was their strident, thudding scores.

Italian horror movie aficionado Alan Jones is credited as fostering the cult adoration towards director Fulci and writes both an introduction to the director and a double-page spread (LP-sized) on each film and soundtrack. As an added bonus there’s gatefold spread artwork by horror artist supremo Graham Humphreys.

City of the Living Dead is Fabio Frizzi’s follow-up to his excellent Zombi 2, all thudding base lines, synths and male choir. I have to concur with Jones that Apoteosi Del Misterio is the crowning glory – it’s pure Frizzi – thud thud thud, moan moan moan, jaunty repetitive motif; It never sounded this good on the crackly old tapes. Oh, and the track listings are all in Italian, so you might want your Italian to English dictionary or Google Translate app to hand.

The Beyond is Frizzi again, and for my money this is his finest soundtrack. In many ways it’s a ‘best of’ exercise that fuses the composer’s favoured trademark elements, but never has it come together so effectively. Finally, The House by the Cemetery takes us in a different sonic direction, this time scored separately by Walter Rizzati & Alessandro Blonksteiner (the latter sounding like a character name from the movie to accompany Dr Freudstein!). Equal parts Morricone and Goblin and with prog rock flourishes its a different approach to to Frizzi’s and as schizophrenic as Fulci’s movie.

Verdict: Who would have thought that these near forty-year-old film scores would earn such a prestige release? But these are classics of their genre and the soundtracks are top of their class. The presentation, from psychedelic vinyl swirl to lurid artwork, is top drawer, and fans will have no complaint. If only all legacy soundtrack sets were treated with such love. 10/10

Nick Joy

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk