Cleopatra 2017
Horror flick gets a multi-colored flicker of aural light
Rolfe Kanefsky’s “The Black Room” isn’t the most innovative of thrillers, yet the film’s soundtrack easily exceeds expectations with its original score interpolating a smattering of psychedelic classics. Composed by electronica maven Savant whose soundscapes elegantly lent thematically creepy scope to symphonic dimension, there’s a lot of surprises here to let the listener’s imagination creep beyond the on-screen events.
Dramatic tone is set from the beginning, as the rousing version of “Tarkus” – performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – opens a mindboggling fantasy vista which would wind down to a claustrophobic title cut. Its 53 seconds can’t be completely obliterated by Lynn Anderson’s transparent, if not so ghostly, “Rose Garden”- but here’s Arthur Brown’s “Fire” to first get impressively woven into the shifting fiber of “Flashback” and then to light up the stiffling atmosphere. More abstractly avant-garde and atonal, the likes of “You’re Starting To Scare Me” and “Shut The Fuck Up” don’t need visuals to create exciting kind of gloom, while “The Basement” and “The Library” propose a chamber display, dark in its dynamics
The tragic rage of “There’s Nobody Out There” may raise a lot of mental hairs, and the psycho raga behind “Seduction” may feel too haunting, yet the short oratorio that is “Paul’s Possession” infuses the overall sonic picture with solemn dread. The vibrant Levantine levity in the heart of “Lebanese” will only sharpen this sensation, until BRAINTICKET’s triumphant “Black Sand” spikes it with lysergically-ehnanced dance, but it’s the “End Credits” theme, though, where electric and electronic layers become palpably prominent, propelling the piece’s folk thread through the needle eye of the listener’s perception.
Unlike many other soundtracks, “The Black Room” has integrity – and is all creepier for it.
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