House of Waxed Overkill
Composer John Ottman may soon need to violently dismember his "Ott," as he's unequivocally Hollywood's It-man when it comes to writing horrifying movie music these days. House of Wax producer Joel Silver demanded a big and gothic score, a directive the composer embraced with visions of organs and massive orchestras dancing... slashing... in his head. The movie is a teen slasher flick filled with hot stars from popular television shows (and 20-second snippets of rock songs, but that's another CD), and despite a tiny music budget, the composer lifts the score to much grander heights than the typical keyboard-tinkering heard in most classic slashers of the 80s. Ottman is the expert at dollar stretching, and this huge gothically-themed score eventually recorded (in a church, no less...) is as much boiling overkill as it is total fun. For Ottman, writing this kind of music may be just like another day at the garage. He's done so many so well. Dare say just another wax on wax off job? Yes, we could say that, and we should. But with a satanic choir, organs, oddly out-of-tune instruments, bones, brutal rhythms, relentless tempos, frigid arpeggios and a piece of music named "Paris Gets It," the House of Wax score CD (Varese Sarabande) only makes it if we have it sitting in our collections, spinning in our CD players. If you let it, this one's heads and shoulders (waxed, of course) above many overkill slasher scores. Bones? I hope we read that right.
PK (5/25/2005)see all reviews, or add a review
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