John
OTTMAN
Urban Legends (Final Cut)
OST
VARÈSE SARABANDE
VSD-6179
[73:26]
Crotchet
Amazon
UK
Amazon
USA
Even given that everyone wants to direct a movie, one really feels compelled
to ask, "Why, John, why?" John Ottman rapidly came to everyone's attention
with his second film, being not just composer but also editor on one of the
best thrillers ever, The Usual Suspects (1995). He did a fine job
in both departments. Since then he has continued to work on dark thrillers
and horror movies, including Bryan Singer's follow-up to The Usual Suspects,
Apt Pupil (1998), and has delivered superior scores for such films as
Snow
White: A Tale of Terror (1997) and Incognito (1997). Now
he has made his directing debut, with Urban Legends: Final Cut,
a sequel to a rip-off of a spoof of the film with which the multi-talented
director, editor, composer, John Carpenter started the entire teen-slasher
genre back in 1978. (The films I am referring to are, obviously, Urban
Legend, Scream and Halloween).
Urban Legends: Final Cut is a post-modern (it doesn't have to take
itself seriously, passing off a lack of originality as a virtue under the
headings 'irony' and 'homage') horror movie about a group of airbrushed teenagers
and a loon in a mask. So John Ottman, even given that everyone wants to direct
a movie, why settle for this redundant slice of mediocrity? Last month it
was Robert Zemeckis and Alan Silvestri paying post-modern 'homage' to Hitchcock
& Herrmann's Psycho in
What
Lies Beneath , today it is Ottman pointlessly referencing Hitchcock
& Herrmann's Vertigo. Or as Ottman puts it in his notes, "Why else would
I have had the writers put a bell tower in the script?!" Indeed, why, John,
why? It's tired, it's lame, it's infantile, it's been done a million times
before, and it really is time talented people started doing original work
of the calibre we know they are capable of rather than pandering to the most
idiotic teenager on the back row: Brian DePalma has already done the whole
Hitchcock homage thing to death, and he had Herrmann and Williams and Donaggio
and Morricone along for the ride. So why, John, why? Five years ago you scored
and edited one of the most intelligent and original thrillers ever made,
so why waste your talent directing and scoring this trash? Including Hitchcock's
'theme music', Gounod's "Funeral March of the Marionette" just makes it all
the more pathetic.
The music? You want to know about the music? There is over 73 exhausting
minutes of it, including two routine pop-rock songs, one Goth-lite, the other
imitation REM, both written by conductor Damon Intrabartolo, who confusingly
is credited with arranging the score, despite Ottman being credited with
orchestrating it. There is also an uncredited, untitled song as the unlisted
track 25, a silly ditty which plays like an update on Monty-Python's 'Lumberjack
Song'. Otherwise the familiar Ottman suspense devices are here, combined
with the usual dark-suspense/horror devices. A lot of the score does sound
as if it could come from a new Alien movie, particularly a Jerry
Goldsmith one, but you've heard it all many times before and will here many
more. It is nevertheless polished and superior bang-crash-thud /
creepy-atmospheric horror music for a by numbers slasher which really offers
nothing to seriously distinguish it from other such scores, and offers little
pleasure for independent listening. The sound, and performances are first
class, the orchestra is big, and when called upon, deliver a truly nightmarish
cacophony.
Gary S. Dalkin
Paul Tonks adds:-
It's hard to imagine when John Ottman got any sleep during the year or so
he worked on this picture. His official credits are as Director, Editor,
and Composer, but you can be sure they extended to many more areas than that.
At the end of it all, the hard work has paid off in an hour's worth of score
on this album. The running time is a perk of saving budget by recording in
Germany and avoiding those pesky Californian re-use fees. For once, the fuller
length of score is warranted. Most horror music tends to outstay its listenable
welcome far sooner. The explanation for that is this doesn't consider itself
a horror score. Although a few atonal passages shriek otherwise ("The Scoring
Stage" ironically enough), Ottman's all-round savvy determined a thriller
tone to his directorial debut.
This score may not be as breathtakingly catchy as The Usual Suspects,
as wacky as The Cable Guy, as unnerving as Snow White: A Tale
Of Terror, or as tongue-in-cheek as Goodbye Lover. But it's
definitely got it's own 'something'. Perhaps it's the delicate use of "Amy's
Theme", or the Herrmannesque techniques he admits are present in the booklet
notes, or even the general sense of fun being had, which culminates in a
finale on "Funeral March Of A Marionette" which Hitchcock made his own through
association. One thing's for share, you rarely get the opportunity to so
completely appreciate an artist's vision of something. This movie and this
score are as personal as it gets in modern cinema. For that alone, this ought
to be respected and extremely collectible!
Paul Tonks
