Virus

Virus is apparently based on a comic book, although the premise - an alien virus invades electrical equipment in order to take over the world, bwah, ha ha - seems a little unlikely for a continuing series. However, for a one off horror film of the seemingly endless sub-Alien genre, the setup is reasonable enough, even if a virus could do a lot more damage to information, rather than constructing robots that look like a car crash to chase people around a boat in a storm. It certainly made Deep Rising, released around the same time, look good and not many films can claim to do that. Unlike Deep Rising which received a somewhat bizarre mixture of a Jerry Goldsmith score, Virus comes from the pen of Joel McNeely. Possibly a strange choice, but his score to Soldier and extra music for Air Force One, to help out Goldsmith when he was pushed for time, proved that he has the stamina for trashy action films, although Virus demonstrates that he can only just about cut it providing interesting underscore for trashy horror.

Virus is something of a front loaded score, the best moments in the first few tracks, before becoming somewhat uneven as suspense takes over from real drama. Volkov and the Mir is appropriately eerie, but things hot up in the exciting Typhoon Leah, which is a choral variant on the music from Soldier and supremely rousing. Another Ship features a somewhat unexpected jazzy lilt, with muted brass syncopating quite nicely - this is not to say that it's jolly as such, merely a little more bouncy. However, from Anchor's Away, things become a little more predictable. There is the expected plinking of percussion, some screeching strings, ominous horn chords and the occasional crash to wake everybody up. Fortunately, there are a couple of decent action cues to liven things up and when it does kick in - notably an exciting string motif during Squeaky Gets Greased and the propulsive Seven Footer Chase - the music perks up and becomes considerably more exciting. In fact, most of the action passages are hugely exciting, even if they are a bit too similar to Soldier at times and are often brief, stuck in amongst less interesting music, Robo-Captain for example, that only thrills in the final minute or so.

Nadia's Story is a low key, but unexpectedly dramatic cue which has a genuine eerie sadness about it. However, it's something of a one off, drama wise, and most of the remaining cues flit from mundane horror scoring, with the occasional action motif thrown in once in a while. The rousing End Credits bring back the choir and make for a decent finale. Virus is one of those scores that goes up and down in my estimation. The good parts are much above average for this kind of film - nothing staggeringly new or original, but certainly listenable and exciting in all the right places. However, at over 50 minutes, there are quite a few dead spots where nothing of consequence happens and a couple of cues, Turkey Hunting or Anchor's Away, could easily have been omitted for a more consistently enjoyable album. McNeely is actually a pretty decent action composer and seems to have developed his style away from being a Williams clone, but most composers would have been hard pushed to come up with anything decent for Virus and it's to his credit that it has so many fine moments.