This collection features two tracks from each of thirteen different films. The recordings are from the original soundtracks and they all sound good to me except the second track, the Finale and End Credits from THE MUMMY, which flutters very noticeably. There are twelve tracks of music by the great James Bernard who did the music for QUATERMASS (1955), THE HORROR OF DRACULA and many other Hammer films over the next two decades. The rest of the music here is by Franz Reizenstein, Harry Robinson, Tristam Cary, Gerard Schurmann and Carlo Martelli. There are several other collections available of Bernard's music in re-recordings but I've not yet heard them, so I cannot speak of this album in relation to those.
Bernard's horror writing is very simple and direct. His innocent tracks are innocent and his aggressive ones are paralyzingly violent and conjure an intensity of evil rarely heard in the writing of others. THE HORROR OF DRACULA set a standard for musical brutality in 1957 and then Bernard kept matching or exceeding it again and again. For instance, I don't know that there's anything more bone-chilling than the Opening Credits to THE DEVIL RIDES OUT - the third track on this disc.
Some other notable cues here are:
Robinson's almost TV western-like "Opening Credits from TWINS OF EVIL;
Schurmann's "Abandon Ship!" from THE LOST CONTINENT - a frenetic bit of Bartokian madness;
Robinson's "Castle Karnstein Burns/Finale" from LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, which sounds like it might have been clipped from one of Dmitri Shostakovich's war symphonies, and
Bernard's "Innocent Victim" (reminds me of a melody from his 1997 score for the 1922 film NOSFERATU) and breathless chase "Burning Castle Dracula" from SCARS OF DRACULA.
These I remember offhand, but all of the disc is compelling.
Unlike many horror-film soundtracks, the compositions in this collection can stand apart from the films they were written for. Every song is excellent at conveying a dissonant and dark theme.
