I have to confess to not ‘getting’ the adulation for this score
- although I like it very much. My problem is that the pop-culture teen slasher
creation / revival seems to demand a clone score to match each new clone
entry. After the Scream movies, the Last Summer movies, and
H20, there is quite obviously a sound studios want emulated - Marco
Beltrami’s. Right from the start that’s pretty much what I hear
in Urban Legend. The familiar strains of Beltrami’s other scores
(including Mimic) are spot on for the movie of course. Yet if you’re
at all familiar with the music from those others it’s a huge distraction.
H20 suffered from this enormously on screen. Studios just don’t
seem to have realised.
This promo disc shows the score to have legs beyond its limited screen pairing.
Its real highlight being the lullaby performed by a breathy sighing female
chorus in the initial cue and "The Lucky One". Here there’s more of
the Young of horror days gone by. As soon as cue 2 ("Sexual Ax") explodes
though, it’s an all-too familiar ride.
I really want to say this is a great score in isolation. From Young it’s
an extended voice that is of interest in itself. As someone closely appreciative
of its predecessors however, I’m just reserved for the sake of saving
others from the pangs of deja vu.
Reviewer
Paul Tonks
Promo CD96008
[45:13]
