A few months, ago, I found a horror movie compilation at Half Price Books called "Gorehouse Greats". Well, "greats" is probably overstating the matter a bit, and I have no idea what a "gorehouse" is supposed to be (gory grindhouse? maybe? I don't know.), but for $3, i couldn't pass it up. I have a fondness for so-bad-they're-good movies, and I've just recently started watching horror as a genre, so I decided to give it a try. It's hard to pass up 40¢ a movie.
The fils are roughly 60s-70s...and are definitely a product of the eras in which they're made. Funky music abounds. Up until that point, I had been watching 80s horror, so watching these older ones was a bit of a surprise. I've been primarily watching horror from a technical perspective, so it was also interesting for me to note how the feel of a scene was impacted by the tone of the music.
Which brings me to one of the flicks in the collection, Satan's Slave. It's an English horror movie from 1976...and definitely has the feel of that decade. The opening scene is of some dark gathering: bonfire, maiden for sacrifice, robes and masks, all present. However, the music is, as best as I can describe it, a free jazz tiki party. Lots of bongos and wokka-wokka guitars. The scene is dark and creepy, but the music completely took me out of it. (Clip is somewhat NSFW):
That gave me the idea of trying to reinvision the clip with a new soundtrack. WE HAVE THE TOOLS...WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. We shall rebuild it...newer...darker...creepier!
The clip in many ways lends itself to re-envisioning, as both primary characters don't move their lips...no sync problems. Since I was in the mood to work the clip over quickly, I used clips from the freesound project (www.freesound.org) for the environmental and dialog sounds (I have a full listing of the sounds used at YouTube). Fire, gasping, and a scream were pretty easy. The priest was voiced with clips of a file called" "evil incantation" (hey, that was easier than expected!). The rest of the ambient sound was from a clip of an outdoor church service that was in Latin (I'm not saying anything by using this....really!)
The primary goal was to darken up the scene significantly. Low drone notes, arhythmic composition, dissonance, the usual stuff.
I'd call it a bit darker now. At any rate, my wife was sufficiently creeped out. Mission: successful. I have a feeling I'll be revisiting Gorehouse Greats for more material.
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