Rating: ****

Compilations, like good horror villains, don’t stay dead. You can chop them, burn them, and kick their ass into a parallel universe — but they always come back. And like good horror movies, which live on in sequels, so too can you reissue, remake, and repurpose soundtrack compilations. It’s appropriate then that Silva Screen’s circa-2000 compilation, A History of Horror has returned from the grave, this time as The Definitive Horror Collection, complete with a fresh new coat of corpse make-up, prettified and ready for display.

With over four and a half hours of music, there’s likely something for every gorehound to love, you just have to pick through the pieces. Of interest is the newly recorded material, which is entirely front-loaded on disc one. This is where most of the highlights are, namely the album opener from Christopher Young’s towering ode to evil Drag Me To Hell (“End Titles”). Here the City of Prague Philharmonic and chorus does a fine job recreating the original recording both in intensity and tempo. Often these bigger pieces that juggle orchestra, choir and solos can come off a bit clunky, but the CPP have improved exponentially over the years. For a reminder of how sloppy they used to be, please see their perf of “Dance of The Witches” from John Williams’ The Witches of Eastwick. Distant, reverberated recording, over-amped brass and tempo problems. Yikes!

Is it horror, or isn’t it, seems to be a recurring theme through this four disc set. Disc one includes some nice selections from James Newton Howard’s King Kong, John Williams’ War of The Worlds (not an easy score to perform) and Javier Navarrette’s Pan’s Labyrinth.  Nice, but not really “definitive” horror films.

Shoot me, but the major highlight of the four disc set is the spot-on (orchestra + electronics) perf of Charlie Clouser’s down-and-dirty “Hello Zep”, from Saw. Name another piece of music that’s good enough to underscore an entire film’s plot maniacally edited into three-minutes and I’ll give you a shiny new dollar bill. Clouser’s work on the series is far from high film music art, but it functions as well for these gruelling torture films as any note Morricone has committed to some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it foreign film fellated by critics.

It’s nice to see Joseph LoDuca land a spot on a compilation of any kind, especially with his vastly underrated score for Army of Darkness.

There are a few duds here worth noting (because that’s fun). The perf of Elfman’s Sleepy Hollow somehow forgets the machine gun percussion thirty-five seconds into the “End Titles”. And I can probably do without hearing the synthesizer-from-your-nightmares “Carousel” from Goldsmith’s The Haunting for the rest of my natural life. “Vide Cor Meum” is the least interesting musical moment from Hannibal — “Let My Gallows Be My Home”, anyone? — and hardly evokes feelings of fright. While John Carpenter’s driving “March of The Children”, from his second-worst film ever, Village of The Damned (the first is Ghosts of Mars, sorry JC) is perhaps two-times as long as it should be. Rounding out the unfortunate low-lights is a very loose, sloppy “The Storm” from Wojciech Kilar’s masterful Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A perf as ungainly and confused as a frightened pig on a greased floor.

Despite these flaws, it’s hard to fault a set that goes this long, and cuts this wide a swath of composers, films and periods. You can literally load this up on your iPod (or generic “mp3 player” ) and complete a multitude of domestic chores — like cleaning your apartment, no, really. Do that. Even if titles like The Mummy, Predator or Ghostbusters don’t exactly scream pure, unbridled, mind-snapping horror, these are minor film music classics, performed decently and all available in the same set.

10 years from now, we’ll meet at this spot, as the Ultimate Definitive Horror Collection, now 8 discs, hits stores. Like Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Chucky, Pinhead, Pumpkinhead and their degenerate murderous brethren, horror soundtracks never die.

Music Performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic; Label: Silva Screen Records; Availability: In-print; U.S. Release Date: October 26, 2009

CD1-1. Drag Me to Hell – End Titles 7:16
CD1-2. Twilight – Edward At Her Bed / Bella’s Lullaby 3:33
CD1-3. Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) – Eli’s Theme 2:42
CD1-4. Cloverfield – Roar! 5:36
CD1-5. Sunshine – Adagio in D Minor 4:27
CD1-6. Zodiac – Graysmith’s Theme 2:56
CD1-7. Dexter 1:44
CD1-8. Pan’s Labyrinth – The Labyrinth 4:03
CD1-9. King Kong – Suite 13:47
CD1-10. War Of The Worlds – Suite 7:29
CD1-11. Saw – Hello Zep 3:01
CD1-12. 28 Days Later – In The House-In A Heartbeat 4:21
CD1-13. The Ring – This Is Going To Hurt 2:51
CD1-14. The Mummy Returns – Main Theme 5:25
CD1-15. Hannibal – Vide Cor Meum 3:03
CD2-1. The Mummy – The Sand Volcano / Love Theme 2:55
CD2-2. Sleepy Hollow – End Titles 3:13
CD2-3. The Haunting – The Carousel / End Titles 2:55
CD2-4. The Sixth Sense – Malcolm Is Dead 5:22
CD2-5. Buffy The Vampire Slayer 1:06
CD2-6. Village Of The Damned – March Of The Children 6:35
CD2-7. Bram Stoker’s Dracula – The Storm 4:24
CD2-8. Army Of Darkness – Prologue and Building The Deathcoaster 4:32
CD2-9. The Witches Of Eastwick – Dance Of The Witches 4:37
CD2-10. Predator (Edit) 3:59
CD2-11. Hellraiser Suite 5:55
CD2-12. Hellbound: Hellraiser II Suite 8:44
CD2-13. They Live 3:25
CD2-14. Aliens – Prelude / Ripley’s Rescue 5:55
CD2-15. Ghostbusters – Main Theme 3:14
CD3-1. Nightmare On Elm Street – Main Theme 4:16
CD3-2. Christine – Bad To The Bone 4:56
CD3-3. Poltergeist – Main Theme 4:21
CD3-4. The Thing 4:31
CD3-5. Halloween II – Main Theme 4:33
CD3-6. The Fog 4:00
CD3-7. Dressed To Kill – The Gallery 6:04
CD3-8. The Shining – Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta (excerpt) 7:02
CD3-9. Dracula – Main Titles & Storm 4:56
CD3-10. Phantasm Main Theme 4:00
CD3-11. Alien – The Nostromo / End Title 3:46
CD3-12. Halloween – Main Theme (Mix 1) 2:39
CD3-13. The Fury 2:55
CD3-14. Suspiria 6:05
CD3-15. Exorcist II: The Heretic – Regan’s Theme 2:40
CD4-1. The Omen – Suite For Choir And Orchestra 3:56
CD4-2. Young Frankenstein – Transylvanian Lullaby 4:09
CD4-3. The Exorcist – Tubular Bells 6:02
CD4-4. Duel – The Café / Truck Attack 5:09
CD4-5. Taste The Blood Of Dracula – The Young Lovers / Ride To The Ruined Church 6:27
CD4-6. Rosemary’s Baby – Lullaby 2:42
CD4-7. Twisted Nerve Suite 5:35
CD4-8. The Devil Rides Out – The Power Of Evil 2:04
CD4-9. Dracula, Prince Of Darkness – Suite 5:07
CD4-10. The Haunting – The History Of Hill House 4:36
CD4-11. Dracula – Main Title & Finale 7:30
CD4-12. Horrors of the Black Museum 3:34
CD4-13. The Thing From Another World – Main Theme 2:06
CD4-14. Bride Of Frankenstein – Creation Of The Female Monster 8:43
CD4-15. Nosferatu Overture 3:03

Total Playing Time: 4:35:51