Best of Hammer Horror [Soundtrack, Import]

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 9, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack, Import
• Label: Mci
• ASIN: B00005K50P
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634,971 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Mummy: Opening Credits

2. The Mummy: Finale and End Credits

3. The Devil Rides Out: Opening Credits

4. The Devil Rides Out: The Spirit in the Observatory

5. Twins of Evil: The Brotherhood Strikes/Opening Credits

6. Twins of Evil: The Enemy Within

7. Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed: Opening Credits

8. Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed: The Death of Anna

9. Quatermass and the Pit: Opening Credits

10. Quatermass and the Pit: Panic

11. The Vampire Lovers: Opening Credits

12. The Vampire Lovers: Laura Is Dead, Marcilla Is Gone

13. Taste the Blood of Dracula: Dracula's Blood

14. Taste the Blood of Dracula: Opening Credits

15. The Legens of the 7 Golden Vampires: Dracula's Metamorphosis/Opening ...

16. The Legens of the 7 Golden Vampires: The Hunt of Death

17. Frankenstein and The Monster from Hell: The Monster from Hell

18. Frankenstein and The Monster from Hell: Death of the Monster

19. The Lost Continent: Abandon Ship!

20. The Lost Continent: Shark! /Webster's Demise

See all 26 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great British Horror Music, August 8, 2008

By 

Stuart Paine (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best of Hammer Horror (Audio CD)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Horror Music, July 18, 2009

By 

Nikolei Romanov - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Best of Hammer Horror (Audio CD)

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.