Jeff Toyne’s latest score is for a supernatural thriller concerning a girl who sees evil ghosts lurking inside people.
Working with an orchestral / synth palette, Toyne based his instrumental cues around a simple 2-note main theme that evokes Ennio Morricone’s minimalist approach, goosed with the moody ambiance of early Christopher Young. The main theme consists of two layers - two whole notes linked to a repeated 4-note pattern – which he employs with contemporary soft rock percussion, and a haunting variation featuring wordless female vocals trailing off into silence.
Adding more dimension to the film’s supernatural elements are “Rachel Sees a Ghost,” with its intro orchestral stab, and sudden shift to an eerie harp; the delicate use of harp, vibes, and plucked strings in “Walk of Discovery”; and the echo-processed “Meet the Lowes,” with an watery, amorphous mix of piano, harp, and low-frequency synth pulses.
Toyne essentially starts the score with a simple theme statement, and then switches to impressionistic cues using theme quotations to remind audiences of the lead character’s emotional purity. In “The Shed,” the level of abstraction is prominent, showing a radical shift in the character’s security as dark forces vie for dominance.
The album’s instrumental cues are broken up by a few songs: the soft rock “Squander,” with acoustic guitar; the country rock “Dust and Sand”; and the Danny Elfman-inspired “Hallowe’en is Here,” with a male singer emulating Elfman’s cheeky voice from The Corpse Bride (2005).
While less atmospheric than Toyne’s Shadow in the Trees (2007), Within is a small and effective little score.
© 2010 Mark R. Hasan
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