About the Soundtrack: Something Wicked This Way Comes is a
James Horner score from 1983 which is around the time he was making his first significant impact in the film music arena (some of his best scores hail from this era). This remastered soundtrack release is from
Intrada and was recently released in 2009. When I first ordered the soundtrack, I had concerns that the audio quality may have come across dated and would prove to be a distraction. Not the case; the remastered quality is excellent and the music comes across just fine. As far as length -- the running time lands on the 45 minute mark.
What You Need to Know: In a way, it's good to see that James Horner has been copying the works of other composers even during his earlier years. It shows that he's consistent!
For Something Wicked This Way Comes, and this was something that my wife actually pointed out to me before I listened to the score (she had seen the movie), it sounded a lot like
Star Wars. Specifically, the main theme seemed to borrow the first few bars from "The Imperial March" of
The Empire Strikes Back fame (which, coincidentally enough, came out just before the time that Horner composed this score). Unless it's extremely over the top, I'm usually able to tune out Horner's "inspirations" so that I can enjoy the majority of his work -- as I did with Something Wicked This Way Comes.
The score for this 1983 Disney movies is delightfully dark, which is what I enjoyed most about it. I hope you know by now that I'm always a fan of music with a personality. The aforementioned main theme, though distracting for reasons I have already stated, is actually catchy and is easy to buy into once you've accepted it. In fact, if I had never heard a note from "The Imperial March", I would have been totally captivated by this melody without a single reservation. Instead, I try to separate the two so I can get my money's worth on this purchase! But as I found out further in the score, Horner does make this an equitable buy.
The best way for me to describe this soundtrack, overall, is that it is playfully menacing; ghoulish even. I found myself immersed by the different track titles that each cue represented since they each held so many possibilities. How can one resist cue titles like "Dark's Pandemonium Carnival" or "Magic Window"? Though there are dark patches and some eerie moments of atmospheric sound, Something Wicked This Way Comes put me in a good mood similar to the way the premise of Halloween does. Harmless fun. While this soundtrack ultimately falls closer to the Horror music category, it doesn't play out like a typical, dreary score from that genre. There is enough fantasy laced in it to make it stand out.
Final Score: A nifty little CD from Intrada, Something Wicked This Way Comes has enough of a personality to make it worth a listen. While this is a safe play for the average soundtrack consumer, collectors, specifically, may get more mileage out of this limited run release (3000 copies).
