John Scott — Symptoms OST
Here we have the score for Symptoms- a slow-burning psychological thriller/ come horror film. Like the movie itself, the score shifts between the lush and pastoral, and discordant and disquieting
This CD release appears on Dragon’s Domain Records. The disc comes presented in a clear jewel case- this features a six-page colour fold-out out- blending a new write-up about the film, the score, and its composers, mixed with stills from the movie, and a picture of the film's composer. The release is limited to just 500 copies.
Appearing in the year 1974, Symptoms was the sixth film from Spanish writer/ director José Ramón Larraz, who is probably most known for Vampyres ( also from 74), which blended horror & softcore erotica in a haunting to brutal manner. Symptoms follows a timid/ troubled young woman, Helen( Pleasence)- who is invited to an English countryside estate, and things are not quite what they seem. It’s a prime example of 70s slow-burning moviemaking, and was thought a ‘lost’ film, until the negatives turned up in the BFI vaults in 2014.
The scores composer is Bristol-born John Scott, who between the late 60s and present day has one hundred and sixty-four soundtracks to his name. These move between scoring crime drama Cop-out (1967), wacky creature feature Trog (1970), historic drama Antony and Cleopatra (1972), sci-fi fantasy The People That Time Forgot (1977), and political thriller The Whistle Blower(1986)- so certainly a most versatile composer.
The ten-track score for Symptoms saw Scott utilising a small group of just ten musicians, taking in flute, clarinet, piano, string quintet, harp, and soprano voice. With the tracks lasting between two and four minutes, though these often bring together a few cues.
The score goes from “Helen And Anne Walk/ The Rowboat” which shifts between brightly gliding strings and harp flutters, to more malevolent bounding piano and forlorn flute darts. Onto the warbling haunting female soprano, eerier harp plucks, broodingly clamouring & sawing strings of “Searching The Attic/ Anne Is Murder”. Though to darkly swooning string, darting horn, and eerily chiming-to-gloomy bounding piano keys of “Brady Cuts The Hair Off The Cadaver”.
It’s most rewarding to see the Symptoms soundtrack getting this CD release, as it’s a well-realised and effective score, which largely manages to stand on its own. I do hope this leads to the reissue of more of Larraz's film scores, as there were some great ones- like Stelvio Cipriani's score for his first feature Whirlpool ( 1970), and James Kenelm Clarke’s score for Vampyres.