by Ryan Keaveney

Music Composed by Alan Silvestri
Rating: *** 1/2

Who says vampire hunting has to be so… loud? Apparently Stephen Sommers and Alan Silvestri. Sommers new monster action/adventure flick, Van Helsing, stars Hugh Jackman as Bram Stoker’s vampire-hunter and all the other Universal movie monsters not used in Sommers’ The Mummy franchise. Silvestri, who knocked it out of the park with his super-charged The Mummy Returns score, re-teams with Sommers for a second time for Van Helsing. If one can recall the final 15 minutes of The Mummy Returns, Silvestri goes mad juggling his themes and fries the orchestra trying to keep up with Sommers’ hyperactive finale. Now, imagine that approach taken to an entire film… that’s the score to Van Helsing, or at least what the soundtrack album leads one to believe.

I imagine I’m going against the tide here, as I think fan response to this score will be quite positive. Van Helsing does a lot of stuff right. The score is filled to the brim with themes and hummable melodies. Silvestri’s orchestrations are as massive and vibrant as they have ever been. Since this is a cartoony big-budget action/adventure film, Silvestri goes all out with a huge orchestra, an army of percussionists, a mammoth choir, and racks of synths. Best of all, much of the score is just fun as hell - but, there’s something missing from Van Helsing, keeping it from becoming an excellent score, and that’s balance and restraint. The score feels very much like a 42 minute action cue. There’s only 2-3 places where the score slows down, and it’s literally for only a minute or two. Everything else in the score stays up at a fortissimo dynamic. This is the same problem I have with popular scores like CutThroat Island, Pirates of Caribbean, or Independence Day. The music for the opening sequence is just as loud and overblown as the music for the finale. All great action/adventure scores should have a musical arc to them. The composer should practice restraint, so that the most important moments in the film get the biggest/boldest pieces of underscore. There’s no restraint in Van Helsing. The album may be only a brisk 42 minutes, but by the time you’ve reached track 11, “The Final Battle”, you’ve already heard all the material Silvestri is about to use. There’s no surprises left. You would think only 42 minutes of an Alan Silvestri action/adventure score would leave one wanting more, but in this case, it’s actually too much.

Alan Silvestri

Fans of Silvestri’s music will find lots to enjoy in Van Helsing, though. Many Silvestrisms inhabit this score. There’s at least a dozen themes/melodies that pop-up throughout the score, some sound like other classic heroic Silvestri themes, while others have that melodramtic “sturm und drang” he’s known for. Ten seconds do not pass at any given time without some sort of theme or repeated melodic gesture asserting itself. There’s a lot of thematic material to choose from, and almost all of it is quite good. Themes of note include a campy villainous march that opens the disc in “Transylvania” which contains chanting choir, and is yet another victim of “That Sounds Like Carmina Burana” syndrome. There’s a lyrical love theme that pops up often, still with a full orchestra and choral accompaniment. Silvestri doesn’t give us a Titanic-like solo-piano rendition of it, or sets it with something girly like solo flute with strings. There’s an ultra-heroic Van Helsing theme, not unlike the ultra-heroic Mummy Returns theme. Personally, I enjoyed a very strong “mystical” theme/chord progression (first heard at 1:18 in “Burn It Down!”) that gets mostly grand orch/choir statements throughout. (The highlighting of this progression in the finale is really great). Make no mistake, there’s no shortage of memorable melodies in this score.

It’s just memorable moments that are lacking. After a while, everything starts to sound the same. I’ve listened to the score almost ten times before starting to write this review, and still, everything runs together. If you were to play a “drop the needle” game with me on this score (pick a random moment and make me tell you the track title), I’d fail miserably at this point. If I were to play the same game with Marco Beltrami’s Hellboy after only 10 listens, I’m confident I would do an excellent job of connecting moments with their track titles. It’s the few quiet moments in Van Helsing that I can pick out easily. The “All Hallow’s Eve Ball” track is elegantly macabre (like a certain famous Saint-Saens composition) with harp glissandi, solo fiddle, harpsichord, and ethereal female vocals. “Reunited” quiets down considerably, and focuses on one somewhat tragic theme, passing it around the orchestra, until the score fires up for one final big outburst.

The fact that it’s too loud and redundant may hurt Van Helsing’s chances of someday sitting next to Star Wars in the film score hall of fame, but each cue, taken by itself, is enjoyable. As a matter of fact, that might be the best way to enjoy Van Helsing. Listen to one cue, take out the CD for a half hour and chill, then listen to next cue, take out the CD for another half hour, repeat… The excitement level goes through the roof in cues like “Attacking Brides” and “Transylvanian Horses” (Although that frantic banjo-like string synth patch in the beginning of that track is somewhat cheesy). The intensity found in cues like “My First Bus Ride” in The Mummy Returns or “Block War” in Judge Dredd is on full display throughout much of the album, and if that’s not enough to get one salivating for Van Helsing, I don’t know what could, other than a nude Kate Beckinsale…

Music Composed and Conducted by Alan Silvestri; Orchestrated by Mark McKenzie, William Ross and David Sloanaker; Recorded and Mixed by Dennis Sands; Produced by Alan Silvestri and David Bifano; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Decca Records, (024 986 199 9); Release Date: May 4, 2004

01. Transylvania 1887 (1′26)
02. Burn It Down! (4′46)
03. Werewolf Trap (1′53)
04. Journey to Transylvania (1′33)
05. Attacking Brides (5′02)
06. Dracula’s Nursery (5′46)
07. Useless Crucifix (2′35)
08. Transylvanian Horses (3′55)
09. All Hallow’s Eve Ball (3′01)
10. Who Are They to Judge? (2′00)
11. Final Battle (6′28)
12. Reunited (4′23)

Total Playing Time: 42′48