Bram Stoker's Dracula: Original Motion Picture [SOUNDTRACK]

Product Details
Audio CD (November 24, 1992)
Original Release Date: November 24, 1992
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Soundtrack
Label: Sony
Condition: Used (Very Good)
Rating: #####
Availability: In Stock
Price: RM29.00



Prepare yourself for a musical composition like none your auditory sense has ever experienced. Wojceich Kilar (who cares if you cannot pronounce his name!) has scored a... An... No singular adjective can possibly describe it. Let me put it this way - this score will sink its teeth into you (pun intended). And you will do the same in return. The entire score - not including the incongruous "Love Song For A Vampire" - is superb. Kilar completely eschews melodies, relying on a repetitive, minimalistic style. Even with its all too familiar "Mars the Bringer of War" style march, "Vampire Hunters" serves this symphony well. However, it is three particular pieces that tower over the rest.



Track Listings
1. Dracula - The Beginning
2. Vampire Hunters
3. Mina's Photo
4. Lucy's Party
5. Brides
6. Storm
7. Love Remembered
8. Hunt Builds
9. Hunters Prelude
10. Green Mist
11. Mina/Dracula
12. Ring of Fire
13. Love Eternal
14. Ascension
15. End Credits
16. Love Song for a Vampire [From Bram Stoker's Dracula]


"Dracula - The Beginning" is a perfect prologue, building from eerie, relentless, stringent notes, climaxing in a crescendo of blaring brass (in the film, this signified Dracula's rejection of God and his embracing of Satan). While this works well with the film, the entire score is better, more haunting, more nightmarish on its own. No greater example than in "The Storm". It begins with a soft - albeit quite mysterious - plucking of harp strings, tarrying until it has reached the faintest, gentlest note - piercing brass curtly disrupts this lull. After an unnerving passage of music, brass once again busts through the door, leading to repetitive, stentorian phrases accompanied by kettle drum and an otherworldly chorale arrangement. After electrifying blasts of brass, the chorus begins an ethereal chant of ascending and descending utterances - this particular section left me awe-struck. The piece appropriately ends with the gothic sounds of a cathedral organ. "Ring of Fire" (this MUST be listened to apart from the film), one of the shortest tracks on the CD, has the most impact. This is the absolute apex of experimental scoring. Not so much music, but a kaleidoscope of hellish, demonic voices and sounds superimposed by chorus. The sounds alone are mind-boggling and unlike anything you have ever heard before. How on Earth did Kilar achieve these preternatural sounds? The quality sounds too organic to have been generated by synthesizers. At one point the neighing of a horse can distinctly be heard. In another part, a mockingly puckish howl almost sounds as if it is saying "come on." By the end of this track, I was sitting with my eyes wider than a soup bowl, my jaw sitting in my lap. Wojceich Kilar has scored a masterpiece.


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