Customer Reviews

The Fourth Kind

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Atli Örvarsson's latest effort is a unique and fresh scoring style to the horror genre. Lately the "horror" genre has mainly been monopolized by either Steve Jablonsky (all the Michael Bay produced remakes) or Charlie Clouser (Saw franchise). While The Fourth Kind can be considered a "B" movie it is nonetheless a very hard concept to score. The score itself acts more like an atmospheric ambience using simple melodic progressions. Atli also incorporates haunting female vocals and some bizarre insect-like percussion.

The female vocals are my favorite part of the score as they are part of the main theme. They remind me very much of the solo vocal that was in his score for Babylon A.D. which was Agora's Theme. The hallow vocals give the score the sense of the unknown, which is most appropriate. The insect-like synthesized percussion I mentioned earlier weaves in and out and adds a very unique element.

Towards the middle of the score we lose all the familiar rhythms and melodic structure and stray into atmospheric ambience. If anyone is a fan of Akira Yamaoka's scores for the Silent Hill game franchise then you may know what I mean when I say atmospheric ambience. The track "They're Not From Here" really stands out in that sense.

While the film itself may have been a poor execution on an interesting subject the score nonetheless rises above and stands on its own. It has Örvarssons style all over it and so many hauntingly beautiful elements that I must recommend it even to the casual listener. Just a note, the film ends with a series of descriptive texts. My rule is that if the film ends in texts summing up events and the composer can make the texts dramatic then you know the score is doing its job.

We are constantly looking for music that is "outside the box" that will create a mood for our competing Winter Color Guard program. This CD definitely fits into this category. It is hauntingly beautiful and ethereal with many visual possibilities to be creative with.

Sorry it took so long to write a Review but I wanted to watch the Blu-ray when I got to it which I had a lot of DVD'S in front of it to watch first.
The Seller was Honest in it's Description being New,the Labeling Tape wass present anlong with the Tight Outside Plastic Wrapper.
I received it faster than Amazon stated I would receive it.
I ordered this with Best Buy and I received e-mails stating the item was put on,"Back Order."
I still call that FALSE ADVERTISEMENT when Best Buy shows on their web site they have the CD when they Acually do not and they try to get it from a Best Buy Store that still has the CD then it go's back to Best Buy online then to me.

A terrifying supernatural horror film supposedly based on true events, The Fourth Kind stars Milla Jovovich, Will Patton and Elias Koteas, and is set in the isolated fishing community of Nome, Alaska, where over the course of the last 40 years there have been multiple reported cases of alleged possession, alien abduction, supposed murders, and government conspiracies to keep the story quiet. While the `factual basis' of director Olatunde Osunsanmi's film remains questionable, the film has frightened a good number of cinematic audiences across the world; contributing enormously to this is Icelandic composer Atli Örvarsson's original score.

Written for a small orchestra judiciously augmented by various electronics, percussion items and unsettling vocal effects, The Fourth Kind is an effectively unnerving score that is often as cold as the Alaskan tundra in which the film is set. The opening of "Flight to Nome" is a chilly, haunting piece for strings, electronics and ghostly vocals that sets the tone for the horrors to come; the insistent urgent string rhythms in the cue's second half continue through "Owolowa", adding a level of palpable apprehension, and the darkly dramatic brass theme which appears at the end of that cue is an album highlight.

Explosions of frighteningly vicious dissonance occur in "Hypnosis" and "They're Not From Here", cues which are not easy to listen to or enjoy, but which provide the score with the palpable sense of terror the film requires. These are tempered by more lyrical moments of piano-led thematic writing, such as that found in "Ashley", or recapitulations of the evocative choral work, in cues such as "Completely Surreal" the excellent "Torn Apart" (which becomes a strident action cue during its later stages), or the conclusive pair "Northern Lights" and "Conclusion", which somehow manage to successfully achieve the right balance between relief and anxiety. Nothing about The Fourth Kind is groundbreaking, or even especially original, but it's a solid, enjoyable horror score, and it is to Örvarsson's credit that his music remains emotionally effective and texturally interesting throughout, especially when you consider the general dearth of good, modernistic horror writing that exists in Hollywood today.