Classic Thrillers [Soundtrack]

Track Listings
Disc: 1

1. Jonathan Harker's Journal: Leaving the West and Entering the East
2. Give Me the Herr's Luggage
3. Welcome to My House
4. There Are Certainly Odd Deficiencies in the House

See all 10 tracks on this disc
Disc: 2

1. Agonizing Experience
2. Goods to Be Delivered
3. Renfield-Excited and Strange
4. Abraham Van Helsing Arrives in Liverpool Street

See all 11 tracks on this disc
Disc: 3

1. Back to the Tomb and Lucy's Coffin
2. Van Helsing Returns
3. Keeping a Watch on Renfield
4. Making Plans

See all 10 tracks on this disc
Disc: 4

1. In Search of the North West Passage
2. Stranger Comes on Board
3. Frankenstein Begins His Story
4. Departure for Ingolstadt

See all 15 tracks on this disc
Disc: 5

1. Daemon Converses
2. Daemon Transformed
3. First Murder
4. Daemon's Demand

See all 15 tracks on this disc

Classic Thrillers, Music, Original Soundtrack, Audio Books / Books on Tape, Books on Tape/CD, Classical

Average customer rating: Spine Tingling Mood Music Creepy and cool Eerie flashbacks! Another great anthology from Varese Sarabande " 3 Cheers and Thumbs Up For Robert Cobert ! "

Night Stalker and Other Classic Thrillers Robert Cobert Manufacturer: Varese Sarabande ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Movie Soundtracks | Soundtracks | Styles | Music General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music Similar Items: Dark Shadows: Complete Soundtrack Music Collection Kolchak - The Night Stalker The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler (Double Feature) Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles (Kolchak the Nightstalker) The Wild Wild West - The Complete Second Season ASIN: B00004WJ6K Release Date: 2000-09-26

Tracks:

1. The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Suite: The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Theme...
2. Dead Of Night (A Darkness At Blaisedon) Suite: Dead Of Night Theme/The Possession Of Angela...
3. The Night Stalker Suite: The Night Stalker Theme/Kolchak At The Scene/Showdown
4. The Night Strangler Suite: Night Killing/Seattle Underground/Leaving Town/The Night Strangler Theme
5. Dracula Suite: Dracula Main Title/Dracula's Music Box/Love Theme/Harker Strikes/Death Of Dracula
6. Trilogy Of Terror Suite: Amelia/Zuni Doll Rampage/Trilogy Of Terror Theme
7. Burnt Offerings Suite: Memories Of A Lifetime/17 Shore Road/Funeral Visions/Aunt...
8. Dead Of Night Suite: Second Chance/No Such Thing As A Vampire/Search & Destruction/Bobby...
9. Curse Of The Black Widow Suite: Mark Hibgie, P.I./The Family Spider Attack/The Black Widow Curse
10. Dark Shadows Suite: Dark Shadows Theme/Collinwood/Love Themes/Barnabas Discovered

Customer Reviews:

Spine Tingling Mood Music.......2004-08-24

Creepy and cool.......2002-10-30

Arguably, it is Cobert's score for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde that most defined the Dark Shadows style, a missing link between the formal themes heard in the show's earliest episodes and the florid melodrama of its later days. Many of these cues were inherited and re-scored for Dark Shadows, and it's fascinating hearing their earlier, embryonic versions. A wonderful mix of strident intrigue and gothic fantasy, they offer drama and mood with confidence and verge, particularly in the overwrought strings and brass elements.

Dead of Night: A Darkness at Blaisedon offered more donations to the Dark Shadows library, with a more freeform, ambient quality than the formal character themes in Jekyll offer. Starkly performed on percussion, the results are abstract and unsettling, cues fading into one another, particularly with the eerie, yesteryears otherworldliness of the vibraphone element.

The Night Stalker shows a quirkier, more offbeat side to Cobert's work, with its affectionately humorous theme, which juxtaposes the most doom-laden Night of Dark Shadows movie cues with upbeat jazzy riffs and drums. The effect is wonderful, playing even the grimmest horror with an affectionate wink at the audience. The contrast is a minor revelation. It's post-modern, witty, with a healthy sense of the limitations of the horror format. The accompanying Night Strangler suite plays things slightly straighter, arguably to lesser effect, though offers some hilariously twangy 1970s kitsch along the way, all lilting saxophones and slinky basslines. The stark oboe that informs so many of Cobert's horror themes also seems to be refined here for the first time.

By comparison, Dracula is as classic and formal as Cobert gets, with an elegance and operatic quality that he rarely equals elsewhere. Richly orchestrated, it's unashamedly cinematic, painting rich moods on big canvasses. Freed of the cue-based limitations of his television work, we are offered a more sustained score than usual, with themes running into one another, developing and modulating as the drama unfolds. Dracula's Love Theme is particularly memorable, developing from twee chimes into pure orchestral fairy tale.

Trilogy of Terror is loungy and sedate in places by comparison. The opening, in particular has a demure elegance that makes for great contrast with the foreboding attack themes that follow. All pounding strings and violent, clipped violin notes, it's played on pure adrenaline and terror, dizzying strings and an ever increasing pace drawing the listener in along the way. There's some wonderful playful asides in form that keep it fresh and surprisingly, particularly pairing the taunting percussion with a lilting brass and woodwind element.

Burnt Offerings is another ambient experiment, with Cobert's resonantly formal themes battling against a freeform element that neatly underscores the film's themes of possession and corruption. A strong woodwind presence gives the music a wistful, timeless quality, with an ethereal disorientating edge. Typically foreboding strings and brass are used in unexpected places to unsettling effect.

Dead of Night is a more mystical experience than the other themes, lacking the terror and fear of the other tracks. Its restrained, elegant exploration of the supernatural has a charm and wistful nature that its echoing chimes and soft woodwind motifs pick up beautifully in places.

The Curse of Black Widow is contemporary and playful, revisiting the Night Stalker work, particularly with its bombastic opening theme, which segues almost absurdly into careworn treacly warmth. The terror elements are mostly played straight and claustrophobic, with an amusing wrinkle from the spider-like scuttling of the percussion sounds.

Of special interest to Dark Shadows fans will be the suite of music from the 1991 Dark Shadows revival series, comprising the opening theme, the classic Collinwood voice-over theme and a selection of incidental cues from its final episode. Here Cobert breaks from his usual style, combining synthesisers with traditional orchestral elements, with mixed results. While the collaboration offers the work a slightly unsettling undertone, and a nice subliminal foreboding and ambience, the artificial instruments sound somewhat flat and crude by comparison, especially when paired directly with authentic orchestration. However, the overall suite is excellent, with a remote richness and transcendent quality that evokes the strongest elements of the Dark Shadows format, particularly in the excellent Love Theme, picked out in rich, resonant strings.

One might have expected a CD of horror themes to fall into repetition, and indeed a lot of reused devices become apparent. Yet, each production has a definite character and charts a definite development in Cobert's style. It's genuinely fascinating hearing earlier experiments revisited, developed and replaced, and the impact the music retains is not to be underestimated. Cobert's talent for mood and dramatic punctuation provided many Dan Curtis productions with their finest moments, and this collection brings together some of the very best.

Eerie flashbacks!.......2002-05-11

Another great anthology from Varese Sarabande.......2002-03-08

Cobert's music is heads and shoulders above most TV music, but much of it *is* just there to create a mood rather than to be melodic, hence only Four Stars. (I prefer soundtrack albums that stand on their own.) That said, I still highly recommend this disc to fans of horror movie music.

That said, there is plenty of fantastic music here. For me, the standout selection is the "Dracula Suite." It's music that is both spooky and romantic and one of the best musical portraits of the Dracula character ever created; James Bernard was always a bit too consistently bombastic for me, and as fond as I am of John Williams' 'Dracula' score, it's better as a stand-alone work than an embodiment of the Dracula story. (All in all, the Dan Curtis 'Dracula' is a tremendously underrated effort in all respects... Jack Palance did a fabulous job in the flick!) This suite is almost worth the price of the album alone, and it was actually the primary reason for my purchasing it.

Other excellent tracks are the quirky, psuedo-jazz music from the Kolchack features "The Night Stalker" and "The Night Strangler."

The "Burnt Offerings Suite" is also fabulous music--and it reminded me quite a bit about the aforementioned James Bernard's efforts for Hammer's films.

And, of course, the suite that many will probably be attracted to this collection for--the selections from the 1991 revival of "Dark Shadows." Personally, none of the Dark Shadows themes have really ever struck any particular chord with me--I think by the time I became aware of them, they'd been copied and spoofed so much they sound hokey to me-- but I had to admit that the material here is both melodic and evocative.

" 3 Cheers and Thumbs Up For Robert Cobert ! ".......2001-10-19

Average customer rating:

Classic Thrillers Original Soundtrack Manufacturer: Naxos ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Classical | Indie Music | Stores | Music General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music ASIN: B00005OMI9 Release Date: 2001-09-18

Tracks:

1. Jonathan Harker's Journal: Leaving the West and Entering the East
2. Give Me the Herr's Luggage
3. Welcome to My House
4. There Are Certainly Odd Deficiencies in the House
5. Repulsion and Terror
6. Further Horrors
7. Terrible Sight
8. Mina Murray, an Assistant Schoolmistress
9. Ebb-Tide in Appetite Today
10. From a Correspondent

Tracks:

1. Agonizing Experience
2. Goods to Be Delivered
3. Renfield-Excited and Strange
4. Abraham Van Helsing Arrives in Liverpool Street
5. Uneven Nights
6. Power of Garlic
7. Crisis-Brandy and Blood
8. Funeral-And an Autopsy-Of a Kind
9. Hampstead Mystery
10. Jonathan Harker Resumes His Journal
11. Surprise in the Tomb

Tracks:

1. Back to the Tomb and Lucy's Coffin
2. Van Helsing Returns
3. Keeping a Watch on Renfield
4. Making Plans
5. Sudden Reapperance
6. Characteristics of a Vampire
7. On the Train from Varna to Galatz
8. Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing
9. Climax of the Chase
10. Final Note on the Diary of Jonathan Harker

Tracks:

1. In Search of the North West Passage
2. Stranger Comes on Board
3. Frankenstein Begins His Story
4. Departure for Ingolstadt
5. Study of Anatomy
6. Study Continues
7. Daemon Lives
8. Clerval and the Daemon Appear
9. Horrifying News
10. Frankenstein Returns Home
11. Justine's Trial
12. Confrontation With the Daemon
13. Daemon Begins His Story
14. Process of Learning
15. Daemon Reflects

Tracks:

1. Daemon Converses
2. Daemon Transformed
3. First Murder
4. Daemon's Demand
5. Geneva-London-Perth
6. Orkneys-The Labours Begin Again
7. Madness and Destruction
8. Murder of Clerval and Prison
9. Release, Return to Geneva and Marriage
10. Murder Again
11. Frankenstein's Wanderings Begin
12. Chase Over the Frozen Ocean
13. Ice Closes In
14. Final Revenge
15. Daemon's Last Words

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3. Classical Piano: Musical Masterpeices
4. Classical Piano: Piano Serenade
5. Classical Relaxation With Chopin
6. Classical Relaxation With Mozart
7. Classical Relaxation: With Ocean Sounds
8. Classical Relaxation With Satie
9. Classical Relaxation with Strauss
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