"Ex Machina" by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury

I love Geoff Barrow and his band Portishead - he's one of the most unique producers in electronic music history, if not pop history itself. A million years ahead of their time. Joined by Ben Salisbury to create the score for "Ex Machina", the two craft sounds that move and build, giving a pulse to the slow, dreamy sci-fi film. A lot of rich, deep arpeggiated analog synths appear and disappear, snaking their way through the middle of a murky atmosphere that spreads itself all the way across the stereo field. Multi-tracked clean guitar plays a melodic jangle, and builds into something darker. One of the final scenes is especially impressive, when the atmosphere grows steadily more ominous, culminating in a distorted sine wave. The compositional ideas themselves are not revolutionary, but they are executed so brilliantly that it doesn't matter, and anyway, what we want is a musical nod to the glorious history of sci-fi scores that is augmented by cutting edge ideas. And that's just what we get.

The film was made on a relatively low 15 million budget, but you would never know it considering the slick cinematography and expensive sounding score. I've enjoyed Alex Garland's novels, and his first turn as a director is promising. I had some problems with the film, but I won't go into those because I think people should see it and decide for themselves, which most people can do easily now that it's streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The poster above is from Michael Sapienza Designs, go to his Etsy shop to buy it immediately or risk living the empty life of not having a cool Ex Machina poster..

"A Girl Walks Home At Night" by Johnny Jewel

What a great vampire flick. There's a lot of classic stuff going on here. The film is in black and white, and a lot of the aesthetic here is an homage to French and Italian new wave, not a style often referred to in modern horror films. The music, by Johnny Jewel of the great Portland synth-pop duo the Chromatics (along with various others), manages to be very cutting edge but also to work within that new wave aesthetic. Even the techno that a coke-snorting, slimy drug dealer listens to is top notch. Lots of incongruous elements are fitted together nicely; an operatic female voice sings over a ragtime piano in an atmosphere of strings; a deep, vintage-y guitar slowly tremolos under a male voice singing in (presumably) Farsi; we also have the more standard fare of low percussion decaying endlessly and soaked in reverb while dissonant high strings freak us out. There's definitely some sonic references to David Lynch's "Eraserhead" in the sound design (or any Lynch film afterward and through Mulholland Drive); infinite drones that perfectly complement the dark, empty streets of the film's setting of Bad City. Much of the soundtrack is Iranian pop, which works well, and also the Portland band Federale, which lends a spaghetti western-ish aspect to the mix. It's an extremely varied soundtrack that somehow manages to work within the world it underscores.

You can currently stream "A Girl Walks Home At Night" on Netflix. Or if you can manage to see it in the theater, I'd imagine that would be worth it.

"Beyond the Black Rainbow" by Jeremy Schmidt

This is just how I like it. Analog synths, mellotron choirs, surreal atmospheres, and jarring dissonant stabs work together to create the perfect mood for the score of Panos Cosmatos' midnight movie "Beyond the Black Rainbow". It's almost as if Jeremy Schmidt's excellent music was created specifically for me. That's what a good composer can make any listener think when they're experiencing his or her music - make them think it's just for them. Another thing a good composer does is heighten the experience of the film itself, because after all the ear informs the eye.  A movie with a great score is a much better movie, and that's the case here with "Beyond The Black Rainbow".

The film itself is a great sci-fi/horror/midnight movie. The color, the aesthetic, the atmosphere is perfect; it also looks like it was shot on real film. It reminds me a bit of the surreal world contained in the house of the final episode of David Lynch's "Twin Peaks", and a bit more obviously of Stanley Kubrick's "2001" and parts of "A Clockwork Orange" (Note the similarity between the poster above and the poster for the latter). Due to the surreal nature of the film, it's quite slow, so don't expect fireworks, (a lot of slowly tracking down hallways while Schmidt's score freaks us out) and don't expect a whole lot to happen, but there's a story there; a story that reminded me of George Lucas' thesis film "THX-1138" (if you haven't seen that definitely do it as soon as you can or risk living a life of regret). And also see "Beyond the Black Rainbow" - at the time of this writing is freely available to stream through Netflix.

"The House of the Devil" by Jeff Grace and Graham Reznick

If someone played Ti West's "The House of the Devil" for me and told me it had come out in 1980, I don't think I'd have any reason not to believe them. If I had been watching carefully I might have noticed that it probably looks a little cleaner - it was presumably shot digitally ** - and instead of film grain, they use noise (which is just like tiny semi-transparent dots that randomly pop in and out for a millisecond, sort of like an old TV that isn't getting a signal at full strength.) The titles, the music, the sound design, are all authentically late 70's, early 80's.

Jeff Grace's score and Graham Reznick's sound design are impressively authentic, and beyond that, very satisfying, putting us in the creaky old Victorian house in the middle of nowhere where the majority of the film takes place. Atonal strings bend in and out of pitch, the obligatory old piano plays an unsettling tune, monastic drones a la "Hellraiser" add to the ritualistic atmosphere, and low drums add sporadic punctuation to the more intense scenes. Great work.

A few notes, some of these you might consider spoilers depending on how picky you are. 

- It takes a very long time for anything to happen. There's about 30 minutes left in the runtime of 95 minutes before there's anything that could be considered scary going on. When something does happen, it's not particularly scary, but one could argue this stylistically appropriate: when we go back and revisit classic horror from the 70's and 80's, the era this film is emulating, those movies are not that scary by todays standards. West seems to have set out to make a film using only the technology that was available during the era it stylistically emulates. The makeup is pretty archaic looking; there's no noticeable CGI, etc. If you dig horror movies from the 70's and 80's for the style and the great scores and nostalgia of it, as I do, you'll love this. It must have been really fun to make. However, if you watch a horror movie with the express purpose of getting scared, "The House Of The Devil" is not for you. 

- A couple more nit-picky things; in once scene Jocelin Donahue, who plays the main character Samantha, is ascending a stairwell toward an offscreen muffled noise when suddenly the doorbell rings very loudly, making us jump; however the doorbell is nowhere near the shot (at least as far as I could tell). 

- One of the songs Samantha listens to while she dances around the house is "One Thing Leads To Another" by the Fixx, which came out in 1983 - this film looks to be stylistically emulating an era at least a couple years before that, even though otherwise the song is a great choice for the scene, from a nearly forgotten and underrated band.

Apropos of nothing, I have a new project which is duo called Jake and Elizabeth, you can buy/listen to our first EP here: jake-and-elizabeth.com

** Graham Reznick tweeted and let me know the film was actually shot on 16mm film, so there goes my theory!

"Across 110th St." by J.J. Johnson

J.J. Johnson's astounding score to Barry Shear's epic blaxploitation (ish) thriller "Across 110th Street" has to be in the conversation of the great soundtracks of all time. Taken as just a record alone, it's excellent, but the smart, spare, mostly percussive tracks that underscore the great chase scenes are completely perfect - the musicianship is superb, the musical concepts are tight and the overall tone matches the scenes perfectly. It certainly doesn't hurt that much of the soundtrack features vocals by one of the great all time soul singers, Bobby Womack, who also wrote the songs that weren't strictly part of the score, which was performed by J.J. Johnson and His Orchestra. It gets no better than this.

It's interesting to note that the song "Across 110th Street" used in the film is not the same version you've probably heard before; it's tougher, faster and more raw than the more polished single. The sweet, sad love song "If You Don't Want My Love" had also been a single for Womack, and was re-recorded here in again a much more raw, sparsely instrumented style. The Latin flavored, almost disco-ish "Quicksand" plays as background music in a Harlem bar, and the tough blues song "Do It Right" blasts in suddenly and jarringly, underscoring a scene in a dry cleaner where hoods try to coerce information out of a man by putting his head in a hot press.

This film isn't often talked about as one of the great 70's films; a lot of times it's not even one of the first films that comes to mind when discussing great blaxploitation films, but it ought to be. One could argue that the production value is too high to put in firmly in the category of true blaxploitation, and that's true: ten blaxploitation films could probably have been made for what "110th Street" cost. It moves very quickly, and even though there's a few unintentionally funny moments, (mostly due to Anthony Quinn's character's hilariously short temper: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT TALKING?!?!?" punch, kick etc), overall it's pretty legit dialogue-wise. See this film immediately if you haven't and you like blaxploitation or mafia movies, or even just great music.

"The Case of the Bloody Iris" by Bruno Nicolai

Bruno Nicolai's score to Giuliano Carnimeo's 1972 giallo thriller "The Case of the Bloody Iris" is as fun as the film itself. It begins with a theme that contains all the hallmarks of the Italian film scores of the day: heavy, groovy bass and drums, overlaid with a melody played by a harpsichord, with some high strings joining in as things progress.  There's plenty of the classic elements of horror scores as well: dissonant high pitched strings with piano playing tense low notes, and in one of the more original moments, atonal mandolin music. Nicolai is a master composer and film scorer but nothing here is particularly groundbreaking. I like the toughness to the sound of this score. A lot of film scoring of the giallo era has that toughness because of the technology in 1972, just before recording techniques employed a more sanitized approach.

The film stars the knockout Edwige Fenech as an oft-naked young woman who moves into an apartment with another oft-naked young woman immediately after the former occupant (also an oft-naked young woman) is brutally murdered. Don't expect anything to start to make more sense from there on in; the plot is thin, and the solution to the mystery is thoroughly unsatisfying, but none of that matters because we're not watching it for the plot, we're watching it for boobs and gore (in this case thankfully more of the former). "The Case of the Bloody Iris" is completely overdubbed, and like most of the other giallo horror films of the day, that only adds to the unintentional humor; the dialogue is hilarious: "she's black, but not too black"; "we're all human and every man wants a black girl". It also contains probably the best reaction/non-reaction from a character that's being clung to by a girl who's just been stabbed and is covered in blood.

I'd love to see a sub-titled version of some of these movies, even though I wonder whether it would be worth it. It could be that the performances come off a lot more powerfully and that adds to the impact of the film. Or it could be that it's better over-dubbed because that makes it all the more bad-good.

This is a solid giallo film but I would recommend the somewhat similar "Baba Yaga" over this one.

"Baba Yaga" By Piero Umillani

Piero Umillani's diverse score to Corrado Farina's giallo horror film "Baba Yaga" sounds like at times like a soundtrack to a great American blaxploitation film, and at others some classic 70's horror films like "the Omen" or "Carrie".

This era of giallo filmmaking features a glut of Italian composers who are naturally gifted at making scores that mix up genres; they're very diverse but the skillfulness in the execution is always impressive. Not only does Umillani jump all over the map stylistically here, but he puts a lot of fresh touches on his music, so that nothing sounds by-the-numbers: the sexy opening titles feature a organ quartet laying down a tough, funky groove. A gritty blues rock song seamlessly transitions into jazz fusion. A celesta chimes a pretty melody, the harmony is provided by a clavinet that sounds like a classical guitar; this theme is later reprised with a mellotron flute in place of the celesta. A lounge jazz piano is accompanied by a cathedral organ. In one scene, an almost Mancini-esque vibraphone adds to the mystery.

This film appears to have been filmed with the actors speaking their native languages and then was overdubbed depending on the country of release; for example Carroll Baker speaks English and many of her co-stars speak Italian and are overdubbed for the English version. As a result, the dialogue can be truly bizarre and almost non-sensical, often resulting in the unintentional hilarity that makes these films so fun to watch. It could be that some of the metaphors get lost in translation from Italian to English. But let me be clear, this is an amazing film from beginning to end.

There are also plenty of tits.

And there's a virtual shitload of amazing cinematic ideas. The filmmaking seems more influenced by French new wave than more typical Italian giallo; there's loads of great images and the quick cutting you'd expect from Goddard (who is discussed at a party of intellectuals at the start of the film. "Goddard is Goddard". So true. It would be really weird if Goddard was Jean Stapleton). It's colorful and vibrant: occasionally reinforcing its vibrance is still black and white photography intercut with live action, the same motif is then used with close-ups of the pages of a graphic novel in place of the photos.

I can't recall having seen another film which features such well shot sex in one scene, and Jesus getting punched in the face in another. In fact I don't think I've ever seen a film with only the latter. If anyone can think of any great Jesus-getting-punched-in-the-face scenes from other films, let me know. The music is great, the film is great, see it immediately or risk living a life of regret.