Hellraiser

Having never been a big fan of horror films, I've not actually seen any of the Hellraiser films, although the image of Pinhead is one not easily forgotten. Clive Barker's story of a puzzle box (the Lament Configuration), sexual deviants from Hell, the Cenobites, and a love triangle between a man, his wife and his brother doesn't sound like the recipe for a quality film. However, unlike traditional slasher flicks, it's not just dumb teenagers wandering off down dark corridors and waiting to be killed, indeed half of the horror is people doing things to each other and not the villain. I often refer to Christopher Young as the benchmark for modern horror scoring and his Hellraiser scores are some of his finest efforts.

Instead of the usual orchestral crashes and stingers, Hellraiser is a much more genuinely dramatic score, with a striking main theme and at times, an almost operatic sense of scale. This is no more apparent than in the stirring Resurrection which manages to be impressive and creepy all at the same time. The rest of the score is somewhat less grand, but Young prefers a sustained sense of dread, rather than employing obvious musical scare tactics. There are a few occasions when things feel a little stretched and the attention wanes, but these are invariably followed by another notable moment. Seduction and Pursuit is a case in point. The Seduction part isn't quite the twisted romance one might expect, but as soon as the Pursuit starts up, Young employs some brilliantly unexpected rhythms and the cue flies to a close. Perhaps the most impressive aspect to the score is that it manages to avoid most of the conventional horror precedents, indeed the strongest allusion is a low brass and percussion motif, only a couple of notes, but strikingly similar to an idea from Horner's Brainstorm, but I suspect this is more coincidence than anything else.

Hellraiser could almost be deemed a non-traditional horror score, it neither employs shrieking violins, obvious orchestral shock tactics and the choir is only employed for low pedal notes, surprisingly restrained, but undeniably effective. Young mixes dread with a surprising level of twisted sexual undercurrent, although it's undoubtedly the grand gestures of the opening and closing tracks that will stick in the mind longest. Perhaps just short of being an absolute classic, but certainly one to rank along the top horror scores of all time and vastly better than most horror scores at that time, contemporary horror composers would do well to take note of Young's efforts.