The Devils Nightmare...!!!

You know when you were a kid, and you went to some boring as hell family thing, and they are so immersed in their own world that they just plop you infront of a TV and just go 'Have fun!' so that they can go and bitch about the economy to their siblings?

No? Well shit, sorry, you must have missed out on the payoff that this ignorance on the behalf of your parents delivered.

On one such evening, at the tender age of 10, I found an obsession with late night SBS (Special Broadcast Station, otherwise known in Australia as Super Boob Station). This channel used to show all the foreign films and arthouse tripe that you either love or hate, mostly hate. But late on a friday or staurday night, you could watch all of Jess Franco's greatest, and Eat Carpet, which was a show dedicated to showing fucked up short features. And I mean fucked up. Once I watched a short film about a 15 year old boy who got caught by his dad while getting nailed by his gay lover, so he got upset (the 15 year old I mean), threw gasoline over himself, lit a match and yeah, died and stuff. It was an Australian film, they sure do love those Dramedys.

ANYWAY, the love affair began at 10, when I watched this fucked up movie called 'The Devils Nightmare'.
It was my first real foray into foreign horror, and may have even been my first real horror film.
The other kids were fast asleep, the lights were out, and I started watching what seemingly started out to be an old Stock Footage style WWII film. It truly was kind of crap, and I got the remote to change the channel...Then a baby got stabbed.

Now I'm not an advocate of baby stabbing, but my curiosity was piqued, I mean, my 10 year old mind ran amok, becasue surely they didn't film nasty business like that in the olden days right?

Well wrong, as I found out in my later years, but as I decided to keep watching, the movie shortly turned to colour, and lo and behold, the title sprang over this outrageously amazing music. THE DEVILS NIGHTMARE. Ooer, sounds like scary stuff, do I change the channel? Hang on, I'll get the TV guide, hold up, whats this? Nudity? Strong Violence? Horror? Well, lets just see how we go ok?

What followed was the most absurd and strange film, terrifying at times, sexy the whole way through, but with the unintentional addition of slapstick humor to boot. I was big on Monty Python at the time, so anything that was unusual, I just laughed at, thinking it was deliberate.

The movie picks up after a WWII sequence during present day (back then it was present day anyway) with a group of SEVEN tourists, who are visiting somewhere, and get lost in shitty weather and are then forced to stay in a mooney castle, where a succubus comes and messes shit up for everybody, super inconveniently.
The SEVEN tourists then get picked off one by one by the evil bitch, and it is up to a proud Priest to stop her. Yes proud. Each of the SEVEN tourists represent the SEVEN SINS, and are all punished accordingly.

The super fox of the 70's Erika Blanc, plays the succubus.

She seriously was very nice to look at, pretty and sultry before I even knew what sultry meant. The movie is laugh a minute, lots of funny random shit and needlessly angry conversations between old men, a fat dude scoffing salami and chicken, a super awkward lesbian scene between a lusty nymphoid and a lazy bimbo. This movie honestly has the works. 10 year old me was enjoying the flipping heck out of this slapstick business.

Oh, then this happened...

Oh, dear God, what is it? Well the little synopsis on the tv guide said blah blah succubus rablah blah, but South Park had not been invented yet, and I had no idea what the hell a succubus was. This demon wench is still Erika Blanc, but by golly, you wouldn't know it. This pic actualy spooks me the hell out when I scroll near it.
So this psycho goes around for the last half of the film, haunting the castle, looming in the shadows, and creeping up on people, making the same sound the grudge kid does (30 years earlier beeeeotch,, take that!). Its actually kinda terrifying, I admit, I turned it over to something a bit brighter on the colour scale, but couldnt resist, I had to continue to the very end.
I was rewarded for it, and you will be too, once you join the club and dig on the goodies that this Euro sleaze fest has to offer.

The film is available in its english dub (I saw it originally in Italian with subtitles) which is the only way you can watch it. I own a four dvd set called Fright Night, which I believe is the going transfer for all other DVD releases made by Redemption in the UK and USA. Its a pity that no-one has decided to take this classic and remaster it properly. The verison I watched as a child, and on repeat viewings on the same channel, were very dark and atmospheric, with most of the outside scenes aside from the ending, set at night. The DVD clears up a lot of the fuzz, and looks rather nice, but all night times scenes are shown unfiltered, and now obviously look like daytime, which causes it to lose a lot of the chills in the chase scenes, and the gloomy exterior shots of the spooky castle.
I'll take it any way i can get it though, and even though this film is trashy and dodgy at best, it remains very close to my heart and i think once you get past the barrier of sillyness that overwhelms this movie, you may even find a place for it in your heart, hell you might even get a little freaked out by the succubus.

I mean, look at this bitch, shes fucking scary!!!

  

And for your consideration...THE TRAILER!!!!!!

 

As a side note the music in the trailer features in the movie too, you can get an awesome cd of the soundtrack to both this and A Doppia Faccia, with Klaus Kinski, as a soundtrack pack, its worth your money, as is this film! Enjoy!

Cover Story Not Included

We spoke briefly about the awesome power of VHS cover art. How it ignited my imagination and paved the way to an unhealthy obsession, I didn't mention however how this old friend of mine abused this power, how it tricked me, manipulated me and just flat out lied right to my face.

The VHS gave us a special gift, it allowed us to turn our homes into a private cinema, where we could watch whatever we wanted how ever many times we wanted. We owned a piece of the movie business for the first time and we were all hooked pretty quickly.  A market arose for films to be made purely for this format, and they were extremely popular. It didn't take too long for distributers to realize which movies under this elk proved to be the most popular, " too scary for the cinema" they would say "too steamy for the silver screen" they would promise, with pictures scattered all over the front and back cover of nearly nude goddesses and bat shit crazy gore everywhere, they tickled our titties and our blood lust alike and sucked us in. We thought we found a rare gem, an undiscovered classic that we can boast about to others later. We took it out of the case and into our VCR watched the trailers that accompanied it, noticing that they seemed pretty shitty but we just ignored this until the movie started and we realized we weren't watching what we bought. We were tricked and we will never forget or forgive.

Welcome to the true art of the VHS, misdirection. How many times have you picked up a VHS case and thought to yourself this looks awesome? the cover art is wicked with a painted visage of girl running away from a big house with her clothes falling off in tatters, on the back all you can see is a messy collage of boobs and red stuff spilling everywhere and you suddenly realize you're home. You kick yourself when you realize that film is actually about an old couple who keep a rabid half human in the basement and most of the film is a dramatic albeit poorly acted social  commentary about parenting with no boobs in sight. You feel like a fool, you curse the heavens and swear that you will never watch a video again! Until you see a big green cover with a beefy man beast carrying away a scantily clad model and the ruse starts all over again. This was how they got you, they didn't have much to promote their lesser known titles, the video stores were too busy promoting their blockbuster titles with promotional items that made you drool. They needed to suck you in somehow and the cover was the best instrument. With the VHS you always judged it by the cover. If you don't want to get caught out I discovered two rules by which I judged what I should choose after the tenth time i'd been had.

#1: If there is a crazy amount of gore on the back cover and that's all there is, there's a big chance that that is literally all there is. It probably wont be that scary and the gore scenes in it wont shock you because they are all on the cover.

2# The woman on the cover is almost never involved in the actual film. If she is really attractive and pretty much naked and you don't recognize her at all, she's a model and a venus fly trap, hiding something a lot more gooey with a ridiculous 80s hair style and an annoying habit of screaming too much.

Below are some of the best examples of VHS trickery, don't take this as a reason not to watch these, I will explain why. Some of these were actually a pleasant surprise, some of them weren't, but all were misleading.

This movie was actually quite enjoyable. Shadowzone released in 1989 by CIC Video, to me looked totally bad ass. admittedly I had absolutely no idea what this film was going to be about, our copy you see had the blurb on the back ripped off. There were a few pictures still scattered about but with no context to go by I was still lost. There was " Shadowzone a new dimension of unparalleled terror" and a picture of a man cast in shadow and a weird demon rabbit thing, so I discarded that information and went to the cover for answers. Some flying demon with a  lab coat, presumably a doctor or some sort. We can either assume that the demon has a doctorate of some kind, probably in pain or a doctor turned into a demon whichever you deem more plausible. There is a naked lady in a space age capsule, looks like she's asleep, maybe the demon or alien is sending human meat up to his planet to either procreate with it or eat it in a ritual fashion but not before he performs a lot of unnecessary surgery first, just for shits and giggles. Now this picture has a different tag line, which makes even more Ludacris assumptions. Now I think its going to be in space and some sort of rip off of Alien. On my video cover it says " on the dark side of dreams a new terror takes shape" WTF! now I'm just confused. Someone having a nightmare about Alien somehow conjures up an alien demon doctor who can phase through walls using lightning and snatches naked lady astronauts, got it! what a relief.

The actual synopsis is as follows:
After someone is killed in the subterranean project called "Shadowzone," a NASA captain is called in to investigate. In the project, sleeping subjects are induced into a deep EDS state whereby they become portals to a parallel universe. Unfortunately this causes adverse reactions in the subject, and something gets through the portal, the consequence of which is an attrition problem.

Well then no mention of flying, lightning wall phasing demon doctors there. Without giving any of the movie away, it was actually pretty enjoyable. Some pretty impressive gore effects at the beginning and some very very frustratingly selfish\stupid scientists ( including James Hong from Big Trouble In Little China and Louise Fletcher from Brainstorm). Fairly cliché but also host to some hilariously surprising moments. The girl in the capsule is not the girl in the movie, the girl in the movie is much more attractive.

I love this cover, It is so deliciously dodgy. It has absolutely no motion to it whatsoever like it was shot on a soundstage. The guy is a total badass and the girl is so blown away by his awesomeness she either cant see or has been rendered mentally disabled. If you are slightly confused its because on my copy the chick riding on the back has her head titled back and her eyes closed, I cant seem to find that one on the net though. This cover tells us that we are meeting the ultimate weapon in the fight against crime. This tells me two things, this guy is a vigilante because he isn't wearing a unifrom and that this movie is going to be a b grade action film with a very little known cast but a lot of great 'F'ing fun. I turn it on the back and see a bunch of lads with guns ready to paint the town red. looking like they are all going to a Universal Soldier party dressed as Dolph, I'm already in heaven. I was able to read the blurb of this one.

 Directed by Lawrence D Foldes 1983 Fellow High school Graduates, Kevin, Scott, Fred and Stan- are now at college. Our hero Kevin, starts developing strange notions about what is right and wrong in this corrupt world. This comes to a head one night when Kevin's sister is brutally raped and left to die. Kevin and his buddies set out to avenge her death by forming a vigilante group to hunt down the gang responsible. This chilling climax sees violent three way confrontation between the boys, the gang and the police with horrifying results.

Just wow, that sounds like this movie is going to deliver exactly what the cover is promising me. Lots of explosions, revenge, some bad acting but a hellova good ride... I have never been so pleased at being so wrong. This movie is one of the most serious and confronting movies I have ever seen. It's messed up and intense with an amazing performance from all the actors , I went in looking for some visceral carnage and ended up getting  a rare gem. I should have noticed the name Ernest Borgnine and realized that this was going to be special, it also a Cannon distribution film so, you know, that should have been a hint as well. That my friends is when misdirection can be a beautiful thing.




Oh Society you devilish thing you. I'm kind of cheating on this one. I'm using the example of how we misdirected the friends (or victims) of ours into watching this with absolutely no idea what they were getting themselves into. We showed this to a friend of ours , who we knew would like it, in the same weird and uncomfortable way we all do. We started by forbidding her to look at the back cover, so she would only have the front cover to judge the film by tee hee. So I'm going to delve into that for a moment. We have an artist rendition of a well dressed man looking very concerned, maybe a little distant, he knows something but is powerless to do anything. That or he's fed up with his dates penchant for the gross. Then we have an otherwise pretty girl in a nice dress pealing her face off like a mask she accidently put on with super glue. Her facial expression makes it look like the whole process is quite pleasurable. Apparently it's "all about fitting in" or "if we don't belong they'll eat you alive" as this cover suggests. Which conjures images of popularity in the school yard, corrupt teenagers pulling the façade from themselves to reveal the monsters they truly are. Either way we presume that the cover is a metaphor for what the film contains, possibly some form of flesh eating sorority 80s high school camp film style.

In actuality: total bat shit crazy carnage you will never wash from yourself even after you pass away.
I'm not telling you any more about it. I enjoy seeing how many people I can fool with this cover and the other cover you can inter change with it which is equally as vague. Do yourself a favour and don't look at the back cover and just watch it. ( for 18 and over only) enjoy.

I know So far in this list I haven't delved much into the disappointing side of misdirection. This is my key example. This cover has so much damn promise. Big spikey metal ball thing and a Robot ready to slash someone who looks remarkably like Ben Kingsley. This film looks like a sci fi fantasy with some very interesting visuals. I just really couldn't wait to watch it, it looked like a low budget version of Heavy Metal. My VHS blurb was as follows.

Sons of Steel is a futuristic action packed motion picture set in the gloom of an acid rain beaten metropolis. Step into the future... A harsh, emotionless world of humanoids vicious scientists, life extending drugs, pulsating rock music and the battle of supremacy. Only super hero Black ALice can prevent the devastation of being transported back in time to battle the evil forces of Oceana.

Fuck.. yes. Although fairly convoluted, this sounds like pure orgasmic glory. The pictures on the back suggest an interesting visual style. I'm going to enjoy this I thought. Nope.

I am an Australian, I don't mind some Australian films, but for some reason this country is obsessed with the image we want to portray to everyone else. I give this film kudos for steering away from coming of age dramas and dirty grimy visuals as we have come to expect but that doesn't mean I going to overlook the fact that this film was annoying, poorly written and extremely hard to understand even for someone who speaks with and hears the Australian accent all day every day. All this needed was two good actors and for someone to focus, and some violence, any sort. Oh and some fantasy and less blade runner references. The last thing you notice and the thing you wished you noticed first was that its M rated for "sexual allusions and occasional language" The half naked women and acid rain reference promised me excitement and all I got was a politically correct fuddled mess. It would have been excellent as a short story. I keep it around as a reminder that not all VHS taste as sweet as they smell.

I could keep going on and on, because there are oh so many and I haven't even delved into the fake actress cover craze of the 90s but I'm sure you fine people have other awesome things to do like make toasted sandwiches, which is exactly what I'm going to do right now. I might even grab  a VHS I haven't seen. Wish me luck.

Until next time. Safe Journey.

Jerry Goldsmith 1990 to 2004

So its been a few weeks, and I have not delivered the final part of my Jerry Goldsmith journey, and I am sorry. But now I feel like my computer may deem it worthy to NOT shut down in the middle of me writing this article (this is my fourth attempt).

With that aside, you are probably wondering why the fuck it goes to a random number like 2004? Well that because Jerry Goldsmith unfortunatley passed away that year. So without any further interruptions, lets get on with this!

1990: Total Recall

When a composer that has scored an uncountable amount of movie and tv music over a 50 year period gets up and declares a specific score to be his masterpiece, you generally perk up and pay attention.
The opening beats to this movie set the tone, the mystery and the action, along with an oncoming tidal wave of suspense and sci-fi operatic epicness. This score is the perfect blend of Goldsmiths action, sci-fi, and thriler related music, which suits the movie perfectly. It doesnt surprise me that Jerry Goldsmith deemed this score his best. It seems like this is the music he was working his whole lifetime to acheive, and this movie was the perfect platform to use it in. Every composer looking to score a sci-fi film need not look any further than this.
Listen to this why running out of breath on Mars.

1998: Deep Rising

First and foremost, if you haven't seen Deep Rising, why the fuck are you still here? Go watch it right now please.
There isn't much to say about this music, other than everytime the main theme pops up during this film about giant sea snake thingys, I want to dance to it, and load up a crossbow at the same time. The pounding and exotic nature of this music just sounds like a really fucked up time on a cruise ship, which is actually what the movies about, so go figure!
Listen to this when riding your gi-joe awesome boat across the high seas, you dance if you want to.

1999: The Mummy

Wow, i don't care what people think of this film, it rocked. It was entertaining as hell. The late 90's were Brendan Frasers years of glory. The 80's had Raiders of the Lost Ark, but all through the 90's there were no high adventure tales, old school danger and intrigue, anti-heroes getting the girl, fighting the local assholes, all that jazz, mummies, you know the stuff.
That was, until The Mummy came out.
Jerry Goldsmiths music in this is Egypt. Even if thats not the music they play in the bazaars there, we have been raised on hollywood version of Cairo, so that every time we see a pyramid, we hear this kind of music:

Dont listen to it for too long, your ears will hurt.
Jerry looks like he took inspiration from these sources however, and made his own action music out of it and made it more awesome. The music in the movie suits our feeble imaginings of Egypt and its grandeur, circa early 1900's.
Listen to this when you are escaping gigantic walls of sand, or Arnold Vosloo, or both, they are as scary as each other. 1.54 jumps up from behind and has casual sex with you by the way.

So ends our journey. Hopefully I have introduced you to a different train of though in regards to Jerry Goldsmiths movie music, and maybe even movie music in general. People don't seem to care that much anymore when composing scores, Harry Gregson Williams I am looking directly at you you transformer porn recorder.
There are few that keep the dream alive, amazing artists such as Michael Giacchino (Star Trek 2009), Brian Tyler (Bubba Ho Tep), and Ramin Djwadi (Game of Thrones) pumping out amazing music every step of the way. I also have to shout out Alan Silvestri, who keeps on making amazing music decade after decade, with no sign of stopping anytime soon.
Its a damn dirty shame that people would rather use generic, lame shitty music that would not even make it past the editing room usually. Theres an alarming 'That'll Do' attitude going on nowadays. Sorry to call you out again Harry Gregson Williams, but if you actually put a motif or two in the Total Recall remake, I might have actually enjoyed one of the 800 chase scenes, or one of the 500 other scenes that should have but didn't have ANY emotional impact.

I'll leave you guys with this, because it is kind of a segue into my next article about the dying art of Opening Titles. These opening titles reportedly cost over a million to make, which is nutbar city (population Salkinds) but I don't give a shit, it's not my money.

Yep, music by Jerry Goldsmith. By the way, this movie is fucking awesome.

For The Love of VHS - Part 1

Come back in time with me for the moment. Back to 1995, where everything was baggy, the Spice Girls were everywhere, everyone in your school was eating snack packs and trading Pogs, everyone was saying NOT after every sentance, rectiting stupid limerics like "miss mary mack mack mack, all dressed in black black black.." and the best thing to do with your spare time was to go down to your local Video Ezy and rent some vids. Well at least it was my favorite pass time.

I could think of absolutely nothing better than to get my five bucks and walk down to the video store and scope out all that this wonderland of entertainment had to offer me. I always made sure I went by myself, for two reasons; firsty becuase it was extremely difficult to convince your mum to allow you to rent something utterly stupid and secondly becuase I had an unhealthy obsession with the horror section. I went there first, I would walk through the door pretend to not know what I was looking for and "come across" the horror section tucked away there in the back. This place was forbidden to my ten year old eyes but I looked forward to picking up every single title on the rack and having a good look at it. They scared me and I loved it, I would never watch them from fear of reoccuring nightmares and my mother's wrath but there was one thing about them that drew me in and facinated me. The covers.

I have always been facinated with interesting works of art, something that intrigues you and something that makes you wonder what its all about. The VHS boom in 80s and 90s is a piece of pop culture history, revolutionizing how consumers receive cinemtaic entertainment, the invention of the home video was the beginning of everything. Back then there was no emphasis on high quality it was simply awesome to be able to take a ride with Hollywood in your own home. Nowadays people base their DVD or Blu Ray purchasing on how inexpensive it is or how high quality the picture or sound is, back then it was all about catching your eye. There were thousands of titles per year created by distribution companies purely for the home video market and all they had to sell them with was their hook. Most of the time they could do that with advertisments that bombarded your attention the minute you walked through the door but the most successful videos were those that wouldnt let you ignore them. They had big bright titles, boobs on the cover, an axe weilding maniac that wasnt even in the film. It was visual trickery for visual entetainment, it sucked me in and still does. To cap off this ode to the VHS cover I have picked my all time 5 favorite ones. Some of the films I haven't even seen ( I will once I find them) but I have never forgotten them.

Number 5:

I love this cover, It's simple, it's awesome and I dont even care what it's about. You get the general gist that there's a tape someone evil has possession of it, aparently during a full moon and there is going to be violence aplenty. I was instantly attracted to the cartoon aspect of it, it shouted out "FUN" and " I'M EVER SO SILLY". You can't argue with that.

 1983 Continental Video,
Synopsis: Well I was kind of right, this tape is a compilation of various horror and exploitation  movie scenes, most of which are very obscure, it's worth a look as an advertisment for further random VHS gold.

Number 4:

Oh man I would have loved to have put this cover higher up on the list but there are too many. I like to think that this crusty critter is extending his hand to me as if to say " Hey how fucking awesome is this? I'm riding the lightning in a frikkin television bra, give me five" I am more than happy to oblige.

1987 Embassy Home Entertainment.

A family come across a TV set, considerably stoked are they, little do they know that the TV will serve as a gateway for a zombie hell bent on tasty human flesh. It is said that the director was not satisfied with how gory the film was so he paid everyone extra to come back and film some extra gnarliness. Awesome level 20 achieved. Enjoy

Number 3:

I'm still trying to find this one, it's just too cool. Here's a dude who is already dead, he's all skin and bones literally but he is such a bad ass. The art work is amazing and the film shots, however un neccassary capture the 80s facination with home video violence perfectly. This cover tells you "come in for the hoedown stay for the carnage."

1988 New World Home Video.

This movie revolves around a "modern-day" deputy that tracks an abducted girl to a ghost town populated by the spirits of the past who took her. There are no limits to how badly I want to see this film. I want to hold it and hear it tell me all of it's delicious secrets.

Number 2:

This looks like an extremely elaborate heavy metal tattoo. I would like to imagine it draping down a metal head babe's bare back as she writhes all over her motorcycle listening to Anthrax. Ive seen my face there I'm not going to lie. I come across this cover from time to time and I smile that there are peices of art out there that not only have attitude but they are diretly realted to something that has an equally as awesome attittude. Everything about this cover is something that I dig and I'm happy to say it is a part of my life.

1989 Imperial Entetainment

Demons trick the population of a town by hypntizing them through rock and roll. Yes it is that cool and yes it is a corny 80s horror movie but if you cant have fun with it then you have no soul. Look at that cover and tell me you dont want to be a part of the grand design that is Black Roses.

Number 1 :

The second I saw this cover I fell in love. It is so retro, colourful and brutal at the same time. It is so hard to depict true action in a work of art and this picture has a movement to it thats endlessly energetic. The tag line is the best I have ever heard and the fluidity of the body line is perfect. Some friends of mine, knowing that I love this image dearly made me a shirt with it's visage. I may have peed a little.

1970 Vestron Video

 A serial killer, who drains his victims for blood is on the loose in London, the Police follow him to a house owned by an eccentric scientist. Okay so this movie has Vincent Price, Peter Cushing AND Christopher Lee. My mind  almost exploded at the sheer awesomeness of what I was about to watch. This is a little oddity of a film. Very retro and campy and not to mention somewhat irrational but it is a great ride and it features some very interesting scenes. Not for those who dont have the patience for slightly dated films.


There it is , my list in all its technicolour beauty, if you noticed a pattern then well done smarty pants you figured out I'm a horror fiend. Horror is the most creative and free form of visual media and it has capitivated me ever since I was too young to even grasp the concept. The gimmicks of yesteryear could be dismissed as cheap ploys to gain a buck but now as I become increasingly disilluisoned with distributors' lack of emphasis on packaging, I look back at these and see a subtle poetry to them. They tell a story on their own and I will always have my young imagination working away, testing the limits of this art form.

Stay tuned for part deux:
Cover Story Not Included

Jerry Goldsmith: 1980 to 1990

So we find ourselves back with Jerry, and boy I thought it was hard trying to pick his three best scores from his early years! The 80's is where Jerry Goldsmith really REALLY hit it home.
With movies like Poltergeist, Gremlins, First Blood, Supergirl, Runaway, Hoosiers, and even more titles that would most likely fill up this entire blog, it was a bloody tough choice.
Jerry was a busy boy in the 80's.

So turn up your speakers, and let me present to you the best scores that Goldsmith composed between 1980 to 1990, non inclusive.

1985: Rambo First Blood Part II.

Yeah I could have cheated, and just said The Rambo Trilogy. The music in these films evolve with the character of John Rambo. While First Blood comes off quite serene at times and beautiful, it also has it's action packed Goldmsith enriched moments, those very moments also appear in the soundtrack to First Blood Part II. This soundtrack is the PERFECT amp up to a lowly monday morning.
Rambo III also has a beautiful, and absolutely amazing soundtrack rivalling the first film in its tone and depth, but half of the real score heard on the CD was actually replaced in the film by snatches of music from the second movie. Also I will mention that if you ever try to source out the cd for Rambo First Blood Part II, make sure you get the full extended soundtrack, and not the one missing all of the good tracks.

Listen to this when you are walking up a hill with a bow and arrow (explosive tip optional).

1987: Extreme Prejudice

What film says badass more than Nick Nolte facing off against Powers Boothe, beating the shit out of every dirty mexican henchman along the way, in a film directed by Walter Hill, and scored by Jerry Goldsmith?
Nothing.
Rumour has it that Ry Cooder was in line to score the film, due to the long standing partnership between him and Walter Hill. The producers (Kassar and Vajna) saw differently however, and told him to go with Goldsmith because they love him so much. GOOD CHOICE!!! This album rocks, heavy synth, typical Goldsmith riffs and a snazzy electric western vibe make this album and the movie a must buy.

Instead of just showing a track of music, I have uploaded the entire intro to the movie, as a teaser so that you can hurry the hell up and aqcuire this film. The intro also has one of the best credit sequences I have ever seen, thanks to Jerry Goldsmiths outstanding score.

1989: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Outside of Alexander Courage's theme for Star Trek in the 60's, Jerry Goldsmiths score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture is most likely the most recognizable and well regarded music in the Star trek universe. It was used for Star Trek: The Next Generation and once more rehashed for Star Trek V. So why then is Star Trek V's score better than The Motion Picture? Simple, theres more to this score. While the score to TMP was amazing and suited the exploratory nature of that film, I can't help but think that outside of the main theme, Jerry just used some of the leftovers from Alien. Listen to them together, and you can hear the similarities. This doesnt make it a bad score, it just knocks it down a notch from the amazing effort that is Star Trek V. This is an inspiring and beautiful score and even if you arent a fan of Star Trek, you have to give kudos to Jerry Goldsmith for creating something entirely original out of a franchise that had already seen over 20 years.

Listen to this when you are either climbing a mountain or at quarter impulse speed heading to spacedock (perhaps that may be too fast, ah fuck 'em).

So concludes Part Two of our insight into Jerry Goldsmiths greatest hits over the years. Next week I will post years 1990 to 2004.

To keep you satiated until then, i will leave you with one last morsel.

This theme will create instant nostalgia for fans of Terminator 2, Total Recall and a lot of other 80's and 90's action films. Jerry Goldsmith composed this, aswell as the 90's verison of the universal logo. without further ado, I present to you......CAROLCO!!!