Brothers and sisters, it's devil music. No, I'm not talking about rock and roll, but about two related clichés in horror scores about bad kids: the children's choir and the demonic lullaby. These subjects occurred to me when reading a reference to a children's choir used in Jonathan Elias' soundtrack to the original CHILDREN OF THE CORN. A book is waiting to be written on this subject, but I'm not writing it. In case anyone is planning to write it, however, here are a few incomplete notes.
The milestone of demonic lullabies, of course, is in Krzysztof Komeda's profoundly creepy score for ROSEMARY'S BABY, which uses an abstract vocal by Mia Farrow. It goes like this: La la la, la la la, LA-laaa. Ooh, shivers up the spine. Just so you know, this was sampled by the very industrial Laibach on their album "Kapital," but all their stuff sounds like devil music.
Komeda's influence is inescapable, and there sure was something in the air at that time about fear of our children. (Wait, we were the children!) The music by Waldo de los Ríos for the 1976 Spanish film WHO CAN KILL A CHILD briefly uses a choir of children chanting a theme that's very similar, and this theme appears in various incarnations.
John Barry uses a children's choir to sinister effect in WALKABOUT (1971). It's not a horror movie, but there are horrors in it. Barry creates settings for the nursery rhyme "Who Killed Cock Robin," which after all is a cocky tale of death. So the effect is sinister because of its context, not because it's trying to be spooky in a musical way. I mean that if you lifted out the choral parts and played them, they sound not unlike "Praise God from whom all blessings flow" or anything else a children's choir might sing. This causes a flash-forward association in my brain to John Williams' use of a boys' choir in EMPIRE OF THE SUN.
That's quite unlike Ennio Morricone's use of a children's choir to horrifically dissonant effect in WHO SAW HER DIE? (1972). This isn't beautiful but hair-raising and nerve-wracking. Note, however, that the title of this Italian film is also a reference to the same nursery rhyme.
Of course I can't help thinking of the ultimate choral score in an evil-child movie, Jerry Goldsmith's THE OMEN. It's been years since I heard it (unless you count nightmares), but I don't recall children being employed in that satanic mass, the way Orff tossed inappropriate child choirs into Carmina Burana. I'm prepared to be corrected.
James Horner's score for SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES uses a female choir. They sound like ghosts on a rollercoaster or, of course, a carousel. They sound like emanations from a mad calliope.
All this reminds me that the earliest bad-child scores must have been for THE BAD SEED (Alex North), which indeed uses a lullaby, and VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (Ron Goodwin), which I don't remember.
The DVD of the recent PLAGUE TOWN, another bad-kids movie, has a making-of segment about Mark Raskin's music, which uses a demonic lullaby. By the way, it has a brief piano piece from Claudio Gizzi (BLOOD FOR DRACULA, FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN).
That's a few off the top of the noggin. I'm sure we could be here all day. Trick or treat!
SIDE NOTE: I don't use this blog to trumpet my other activities. Well, once I posted a link to a review of an Aaron Copland DVD, but that was instantly obliterated in the Great Glitch of Ought-Nine. I was afraid I caused it. However, I'm really chuffed at this one. Video Watchdog is my favorite magazine (long before I ever wrote for them). If you go to Video Watchdog and click on Coming Soon, you see a preview of the issue coming out October 30, and if you click on the cover, you see a preview of the cover story, a lengthy windage on "Millennial Unreality" by yours truly. Reserve your copy today for another H'ween treat!
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