Customer Reviews

Oculus Infernum: Halloween Tale

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dee Snider, of Twisted Sister fame, has managed to put together a rather notable concept album with this latest project. Inspired by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Van Helsing's Curse sets out to impart upon the listener a creepy Halloween experience mixed with dark and formidable classical selections, and they indeed achieve their goal. Van Helsing's Curse combines electronic elements with crunching guitars, operatic vocals (including a choir singing in Latin), unnerving sound effects, and well-known classical music to create some outstanding compositional medleys that manage to be spooky, orchestral, and powerful all at the same time.

Some highly recognizable pieces included are "Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky, "Night on Bald Mountain" by Musgorski, "Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Greig, "Funeral March" by Chopin, "Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven, and "Carmina Burana." Also included are "Ave Satani" from the movie "The Omen," as well as "Tubular Bells" from the movie "The Exorcist," which any fan of the horror genre can appreciate. Black Sabbath's self-titled song is also revamped and has its place on this album.

Woven into these classical masterpieces, however, is a somewhat cheesy story involving a child whose innocence is to lift a demonic curse (referred to only as "it" or "the entity") placed on the Van Helsing family. Furthermore, Dee Snider's narration comes off as being overly dramatic and extremely contrived, cheapening the listening experience to some extent. In fact, the music really could have stood quite well on it's own.

Paltry story line aside, the masterful musical arrangements make this CD well worth a listen, particularly on a cold, dark Halloween night. It will be interesting to see what Van Helsing's Curse comes up with next, as they improve upon these well-laid foundations. Overall, "Oculus Infernum" is an outstanding melding of 80's style heavy metal with classical compositions. Van Helsing's Curse has created a savory blend of fierce and unsettling music that has earned its place as a soundtrack for Halloween.

I would describe the sounds of Van Helsing's Curse as Midnight Syndicate meets Trans Siberian Orchestra. Melodic yet hard core and sure to please any classical fan as well as you rockers out there. This 18 piece orchestral ensemble mixed with narration by Dee Snider of Twisted Sister Fame, makes this undoubtedly THE soundtrack for Halloween this year.

The feel of this CD is heavy, edgy, rock orchestrated music - mixed with the narration of a terrorizing tale involving Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Character Of Bram Stoker's "Dracula") saving the day. I think this concept can really take the music world to the next level. We all used to listen to "Peter and the Wolf" and such in grade school music class, but the ante is upped now, this is for us BIG kids!

On this CD you will hear flecks of tributes of familiar tunes such as: "Tubular Bells" , "In the Hall of the Mountain King", "Ave Satani", "Dies Irae", "Carmina Burana", and many many more.

Definitely the best 47 minutes I've ever spent in hell! Very clean, very sharp, very heavy!

...this CD kept me on the edge of my seat from the first note through to the last. From the heart pounding drums to the ear piercing choir, it sucks you in. The icing on the cake is the tantalizing violin that brings to mind someone tickling your neck with sharp scissors. Van Helsing's Curse does for Halloween what Trans Siberian Orchestra does for Christmas.
review by: the child

This is a great cd. It has a scary story to it, with wonderful music. To me, it is like Trans Siberian Orchestra does Halloween. There are Trans Siberian Orchestra members who perform in this cd. Mark Wood, Viper Violin, Tommy Farese,and Michael Lanning in the choir that sings Camrina Burana, Sophia Ramos is featured vocalist on "Let the Pain Begin and Jane Mangini on piano. And Al Pitrelli aka Jake Richards plays guitar and helped Dee write it. The story can remind you of Steven King's "It". The cd seems to be inspired by both. Dee Snider has said that TSO inspired him and that's why he wrote this. I guess you could say this is Dee Snider's take on Halloween, with the help of some great sounding musicians!! This is a cd I highly recommend!!

Dee Snider has achieved his desire. To come up with a worthy equivalent to the Christmas Spirit of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This desire, albeit a dark and insidious one has led to the creation of "Van Helsing's Curse". Oculus Infernum is indeed a soundtrack for Halloween. It is moody, creepy and sounds powerful on the recording. It is Dee's hope to make this a touring company similar to the TSO sometime next year. I am only imagining if he does it properly, this will be a spectacle to behold.

Tubular Hell starts off the opus, and amidst an eerie narration by Dee, the tale is told of an evil spirit among us once again. Other portions of the music include Hall Of The Mountain King, and the Omen along with a symphonic and operatic version of Black Sabbath. That impressed me a lot. Among the performers are Mark Wood who tours with the TSO on violin and Joe Franco, former Twisted Sister and Good Rats on the drums. I look forward to seeing this brought to life next year and recommend fans of the TSO and Twisted Sister or anything outright spooky to go check this out. The bands website is www.vanhelsingscurse.com so visit soon.

My gripe, the story should have been outlined more in the book and included more pics and details. It is nice, but its skint.

The lame "spooky" dialogue was left out. It was almost like it was trying too hard to be dark and scary. The music was brilliant but the ridiculous narrative was too much. I was rolling my eyes and thinking, "Oh, God..."

My favorite tracks on this album are "Let the Pain Begin" (which is an awesome rock-opera style song) and "Tubular Hell" (a rock rendition of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells").

I have a few songs on my iPod, but used WavePad to edit out the awful story dialogue.

3 out of 5.

If your into the up and coming Horror/metal genre this is the cd for you. Dee Snider has reinvented himself in away that fits him perfectly. My only complaint is that the cd is too short,it needs another 20 minutes of music for my taste.
Gary

It could've been better. This Halloween equivalent of Trans-Siberian Orchestra attempts to deliver the goods in becoming the "official soundtrack" to the dark day. This is not bad; the music is quite dark & heavy as you would imagine, but the plot leaves a lot to the imagination, which to some folks might be a good thing. Dee Snider, as we all know from Twisted Sister, certainly has the capability to expand on his storyline. I wish he would've done so. The brief narration on the cd tells us the edited tale of an omnipotent evil vanquished by a child & a certain Mr. Van Helsing. If this disc had a more elaborate storyline to its concept, I feel it would be much more of a success than it already is. Be ready for the evil chanting from "The Omen" as well as interpretations of "Tubular Bells" from "The Exercist" & the title track from "Black Sabbath". This is by no means a bad cd; it just could've really been a scary masterpiece had it expounded more on the plot. I understand that in the future, Dee plans to take this on the road. It could certainly make for an excellent theatre work in a live setting. The Wolf

This has been remastered, given extra tracks, and is a much better version available from Midnight Syndicate at their online store. They even have a live performance (yes visual) available.

A very cool and spooky concept album for Halloween. This would make a great soundtrack in an edgy haunted house -- much more interesting than heavy metal guitar.