Cory Strand — Halloween II: Deep Drone Version
Halloween II appeared in 1981, it was written & produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill(who of course directed/ wrote/produced the 1st movie), but directed by New York based TV/ movie director Richard L. "Rick" Rosenthal, Jr.
The film followed on from the end of the first movie( I’m sure everyone & their mother has seen the first classic Halloween movie, but just in case you haven’t I wont ruin the end of the 1st movie here). Anyway this second film is set mainly in a eerier, and seemingly mostly deserted hospital. And where the first film had little or no gore, this 2nd movie focused in on more gory kills & deaths.
The films original soundtrack was composed & created by John Carpenter & Alan Howarth(the pair have worked on most of the soundtracks for Carpenters movies over the years). This original soundtrack moved between buoyant ’n’ evil glee filled choppy yet slightly wonky 80’s up-beat electronica, more crawling & off kilter synth brood ‘n’ spooky weave, to the odd more streached out simmer of prime evil synth texturing. For this reinterpretation Stand has taken the soundtracks albums original eleven tracks, and stretched each out into a twenty-to-forty minute deep dread feasts…he’s stripped out all of the original tracks nervy edges, and boiled them down to suffocating, murky, and shadowy sonic expanses. And by doing this he’s pulled the soundtracks deeply brooding, prime evil, and unwell soul out, so through-out this reinterpretation you get the feeling of timeless & soulless evil(which I guess the Michael Meyers/ shape character is).
Each of the four CDR’s features between two & three tracks a piece, and really each track here follows a fairly similar sonic path- as it’s built around stretched ‘n’ smudged out 80’s synth tone. Also a few of tracks here are recorded at a fairly low level, so once again Stand creates this feeling of something hiding in the shadows coolly watch you, biding it’s time to strike. Or that feeling you get on a midnight walk, when you are sure your been followed, but each time you look behind you there’s no trace of another soul.
I’ve tried playing this set as one long four plus hour deep drone submersion, and then in smaller more manageable chunks of dread- and I have to say it does work better in smaller chunks. I found if you play the whole thing in one sitting it does start to become all a little too samey, and you miss each tracks subtle details over such a long period of concentration . But in small say half an hour, to seventy minute chunks, the tracks both retain their deep feeling of tangible dread and slightly different textural detail.
So in summing up this release pretty much ‘does- what-it- says- the- box’ i.e. it offers up a dread filled & morbidly deep drone focused reinterpretation of Carpenters & Howarth orignal soundtrack. I can’t say it’s one of Stands most varied works, but if your in the mood for slow moving & deeply dread filled ambience this could well be your cup of tea.