Hostel

OK, I admit it, I thought Hostel was going to be atrocious. Arse gravy of the very worst kind, as Stephen Fry might say. The film doesn't look especially promising, a grungy horror film from the director of Cabin Fever. Mind you, it seems to have received some reasonably positive notices even if it does sound rather unpleasantly violent and gory. The aforementioned Cabin Fever was also scored by Barr, albeit in collaboration with the rather better known Angelo Badalamenti. However, I don't even need to consult my earlier review to recall that I found the album musically rather pointless, even if it did, admittedly, contain some quite effective ideas. Fortunately, Hostel is a far more stylish and musically interesting project.
The cynical would be inclined to say that, in many ways, Cabin Fever is the more original score but give me less original and more musical any day. Perhaps rather brief to be considered a representative Suite, the opening track is a solid, orchestral opening, clearly recalling Psycho's Prelude, but with enough contemporary touches and twists for Barr to make it his own. There follows a number of pleasingly tuneful and surprisingly upbeat cues; the vocal parts just about manage to avoid cliché, both Brothel and Village are really very nice indeed, while Spa introduces a lovely harp motif. Only a vague hint of menace and creepiness preventing the mood becoming too bright. However, the unpreposessingly titled Pedicure kicks into more Marco Beltrami territory and the tone moves into more familiar contemporary horror scoring.

Fortunately, while there is plenty of the Beltrami approach, the more grandiose style of Christopher Young makes itself known and cues such as Mr Serious American are consequently scary, but still musically literate. True, there are a handful of tracks which don't have much going for them, such is the nature of horror suspense scoring these days, but the majority are worth the time and thus the almost three quarter of an hour running time is a scary delight rather than an unmusical chore. Reflections makes for a brief upbeat pause before the rather more brutal final pair of tracks. With his delightful banjo laced score for The Dukes of Hazzard and the quality of the orchestral writing here, Barr is hopefully a name to keep an eye on.

PS. As usual for less well known composers, I looked Barr up on the Internet Movie Database and was thrilled to discover that his mini biography is by the splendidly titled Throck Morton P. Gildershlee. There isn't much you can do for your kids when you're called Mr and Mrs Gildershlee, but calling him Throck is hardly the answer.