May 14, 2021
Charlie Clouser Scores EYE WITHOUT A FACE and SPIRAL
Horror specialist composer and former original Nine Inch Nails member Charlie Clouser (SAW series, RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION, NUMB3RS, WAYWARD PINES, CHILDHOOD’S END miniseries) has scored EYE WITHOUT A FACE, a psychological horror/thriller that is a modern take on Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW. No relation to the 1960 Georges Franju French film EYES WITHOUT A FACE, the film is written, directed, and produced by Ramin Niami (SHIRIN IN LOVE, PARIS, SOMEWHERE IN THE CITY) and stars Dakota Shapiro, Luke Cook, and Vlada Verevko. The film follows an agoraphobic young man (Shapiro), living with a Youtuber and struggling actor (Cook), who hacks the webcams of young women, and suspects that one of them is a serial killer (Verevko).
In a comment posted on twitter yesterday, Clouser revealed that his “score is a claustrophobic all-electronic soundscape of a brain slowly malfunctioning, as usual! [The] tension builds to a startling conclusion.”
EYE WITHOUT A FACE opened in Eastern Europe last month, and is slated for release in the US and Canada from Gravitas Ventures this summer.
Also coming up from Clouser is the SAW-related horror movie SPIRAL (formerly titled SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW). The movie follows an esteemed police veteran, a brash detective and his rookie partner as they take charge of an investigation into murders that are eerily reminiscent of the city’s gruesome past. The film is being released in theaters nationwide this weekend by Lionsgate. The soundtrack album will be released digitally next Friday, May 21 by Lakeshore Records.
“The tension runs high in Clouser’s score with intense electronic percussion and modified drum machines mixing with his trademark bowed metal instruments as well as the addition of a new Chas Smith instrument creation, the ‘Tio,’ that all serve to distinguish this score from his past work,” described Lakeshore’s press release about SPIRAL’s score.
“Since a lot of the action in Spiral takes place in the outside world instead of in some dank dungeon somewhere, I wanted the score to have a brighter, more percussive feel than in some of the previous films,” explains Clouser of the film’s unique score. “There’s less of the murky, underwater gloom and more tension-building rhythms, a bit more high-energy feel to many of the scenes. Of course, the familiar murky feel is still there when things get dark, but it’s not the dominant voice in the score any more.” Clouser used modified drum machines and additional “weird percussion” to provide urgent propulsion to moments in the score and also brought in “some influences from modern trap beats and other pop music influences,” he said. “So that’s a bit of a shift in tone from many of the previous films as well.”
The SPIRAL digital soundtrack can be pre-ordered now from these links.
