Connect with us

Interviews

We Interviewed Composer Mark Korven About His Terrifying Score for ‘The Witch’

Published

on

The success of Robert Eggers’ The Witch (review) is something that every horror fan should be celebrating, whether or not you think the movie qualifies as horror. What matters is that a film that is being marketed as horror (and is getting loads of acclaim) did extremely well in its opening weekend, especially considering the competition, and has a lot of people talking.

One of the most beloved aspects of the film is the score, which was composed by Mark Korven. Hailed by our own Kalyn Corrigan as “unsettling” and Film on Wax’s Charlie Brigden as “lonesome” and “utterly rewarding”, Korven’s music is terrifying audiences everywhere and for very good reason: It’s scary as hell!

Related: Screamworks: Mark Korven ‘The Witch’

Below is an interview with Korven where we talk about the inspirations for the music, the instruments used, and whether or not Korven was himself so unsettled by the music that he had to step away for a moment here and there! Additionally, there are two unused tracks from the film that you can listen to!

Make sure to follow Mark on Twitter or check out his official website for more information.

korven_the-witch-soundtrack

‘The Witch’ has received massive critical acclaim since its premiere and has only grown in terms of audience interest. Are you surprised by this success or did you have a feeling that this movie was something special?

I knew it was special right at the script stage. It was going to be good and I knew that I had to do the score for it. And then when I met Robert Eggers, I knew that I had to work with him. It was so inspiring to be around someone with that kind of laser focus, with such a unique creative vision. As far as the success of the film, this I wasn’t too sure about. It was very much an art house piece, which I personally loved, but I wondered whether or not a wide audience would connect with it. But I don’t think this question was at the forefront. Everyone was just intent on helping Robert realize his vision for the film.

‘The Witch’ is a movie that is different from many modern horror films in that it takes place during a time when there isn’t any electrical technology, not even for lights. Did this near-luddite lifestyle that the main characters live in affect how you approached scoring the film?

Yes, in that we both wanted to keep things quite minimal, and keep any human imperfections in the score. The score is tense and dissonant, but there’s also a certain fragility there, which reflects these people living on the edge of existence.

The movie rarely ever feels open, taking place mainly in the farmhouse and the woods. And even when the characters are outside, there is still this oppressive miasma that hangs overhead. Was this claustrophobic feeling something you embraced and utilized?

The claustrophobic feeling was really something that Robert was shooting for. He wanted the film to just lay on top of people like a 90 minute puritan nightmare. I think he said once that in order for it to be horror, it had to be horrifying. Musically speaking that resulted in a score that was far more dissonant than anything I’d ever done. It just never lets up.

Due to the time period that the movie takes place in, did you try to keep the instrumentation authentic to that period or did you feel like the supernatural aspect of the film granted a certain amount of sonic freedom?

Robert didn’t want any traditional harmony or melody in the score, but he wanted it to still fit within the family’s world. So it came down to the instrument selection. The backbone of the score was actually a Swedish instrument called the nyckelharpa. It’s a medieval keyed violin and when Rob first heard it he said, “That’s it, that’s the sound of the score”. It was unique, but felt like it was of that time. So no, we weren’t really slaves to the period at all and our ears were are only guide. Which made it I think, the only exception in the entire film, since its attention to period detail is extremely O.C.D.! The water phone was used a lot as well, and that’s a 20th century experimental instrument.

Being completely open and honest, your score freaked me out more than a few times. I have to know if you ever got unsettled by your own music and had to take a break from writing and recording.

No, I can pretty much handle anything at all musically. Most of the music I get asked to write is pretty tense. I guess I’m typecast! It’s the content that disturbs me sometimes, like when I scored “Shake hands with the Devil” which was about the Rwandan genocide. I definitely needed a break during that. Oh…and sorry about freaking you out!

markkorven

Managing editor/music guy/social media fella of Bloody-Disgusting

Interviews

“I Don’t See Retiring from This” – Joe Bob Briggs Talks New “Last Drive-In” Format and the Show’s Future [Interview]

Published

on

Hey everybody, have you heard the news? Joe Bob is back in town!

The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs has returned for its sixth season on Shudder. While the show’s format has been slightly revised adopting a new biweekly schedule with one film instead of a double feature the beloved horror host’s approach is much the same.

“It didn’t really change anything,” Briggs tells Bloody Disgusting. “We were crowding all of our movies into 10 weeks once a year and then having specials, and we found that people would rather have more weeks. It’s actually more movies than we had before.

“And some of the people on the East coast fall asleep in the second movie,” he laughs. “It’s about a five-hour show when it’s a double feature because we talk so much. Also, it’s hard to get thematic double features every single time. So our specials are still double features, but our regular episodes are single features.”

The season kicked off last week with The Last Drive-In Live: A Tribute to Roger Corman, celebrating the legendary filmmaker’s first 70 years in Hollywood with a double feature of 1959’s A Bucket of Blood and 1983’s Deathstalker. The special was filmed live in front of a fervent audience of Briggs’ fan base lovingly dubbed the Mutant Family at Joe Bob’s Drive-In Jamboree in Las Vegas last October.

In addition to his usual hosting duties, Briggs conducted a career-spanning interview with Corman and his wife, fellow producer Julie Corman. They were also joined by one of Corman’s oldest friends and collaborators, Bruce Dern. In a heartfelt moment of mutual admiration, Briggs and Corman exchanged lifetime achievement awards on hubcaps.

“I’ve known Roger for about 35 years, so I’ve only known him for half of his career,” Briggs chuckles. In his long history of reviewing, interviewing, and talking about Corman and his legendary work, one emblematic encounter sticks out to Briggs.

“I remember the very first time I went to the Corman studio, which was a lumber yard on Venice Boulevard. He had a standing set for a spaceship control room, a standing set for a strip club, and I think he had one other one, and then he had all of his editing facilities there, but it was still a lumber yard. They had not really changed any of the buildings or anything.

“He’s showing me around the studio, and we were walking past a pile of debris, and I said, ‘Roger, is that the mutant from Forbidden World?’ It had just been thrown over in a corner. And he just said, ‘Yes, Joe Bob, I believe that is. He was apparently no longer needed.’ I said, ‘Roger, you gotta get with it! That stuff is worth money.’ But he was like, ‘When the movie’s over, the movie’s over.’ That was Roget to a T.”

At least part of Corman’s longevity can be attributed to his shrewd business practices and pragmatic approach to the industry, which has included working in every conceivable genre of cinema. “I couldn’t think of a single genre he has not made,” Briggs says.

“When we did this interview at the Jamboree, I said, ‘I’m gonna name the genre, and you tell me what you love about that genre,’ and every comment that he made involved money and box office performance,” he snickers. “None of it was involved with love of cinema, although I did get him to say that his favorite genre is a genre that he didn’t dabble in much other than his first movie [1954’s Highway Dragnet], and that was film noir.”

While the fourth annual Drive-In Jamboree is still in the planning stage, Briggs is delighted by the event’s continued success. “The Jamboree is something that we literally just threw together. We’ve had three of them now. It’s something where we just show up and try to come up with programming for each day.

But I really think the Jamboree is more about the mutant family meeting the mutant family. It’s more about people who know each other online gathering and partying with each other in person. It’s not so much about what movies we have. I mean, we always have an anniversary movie, and we always have some special guests and everything, but it’s more about the gathering of the mutants. It’s fun from that point of view. They’re exhausting, I can tell you that.”

The zeal among Briggs’ audience has only grown over the years, from hosting Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel from 1986 to 1996, to MonsterVision on TNT from 1996 to 2000, and The Last-Drive-In on Shudder since 2018. “I’m amazed, having been in the business for this many years, that I still have a show at this time, because they say you can’t repeat TV,” Briggs notes.

“Nobody wants to see old TV, and yet I’ve done the same show three times on three different networks, and every time I try to change it everyone says, ‘No, no, don’t change it! That’s the part we love.’ I always want to do something new, and I’m always told, ‘No, you’re the CEO of Coca Cola who went to New Coke.’ You can’t do that. People will revolt. So we’re still doing it.

“It’s one of the few shows that I know of that’s just sort of grown organically over, gosh, almost 40 years. We’ve just added elements to the show. We try things. If something doesn’t work, we throw it away. If something works, we do it forever!”

The mutant family will be happy to know that Briggs plans to continue hosting and writing about movies for as long as he’s able to. “I don’t see retiring from this or retiring from writing. I’m primarily a writer, and the good thing about writing is long after they don’t wanna see you on TV anymore you can still write.

“The difference today, though, is I was pretty much the only guy doing genre films when I started. Now, there are academics that do it. There are entire books written about Dario Argento and Tobe Hooper and even lesser names than those, and there are, of course, a massive number of websites, including your own, so that when something comes out today, there’s immediately a hundred reviews of it; whereas in 1982, I was sort of the only guy, because the movies were considered disposable trash. So I have been surpassed in my deep knowledge, because who can keep up with all that? It’s impossible!”

Diana Prince, who serves as Briggs’ co-host Darcy the Mail Girl and was instrumental in getting him back in the hosting chair, has been promoted to an associate producer this season. “She was sort of always the associate producer, but I guess they finally gave her the title,” Briggs explains.

“Diana Prince is in on all the decisions about programming. I always listen to Austin Jennings, the director, and Diana Prince, the mail girl, because they come from opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of what kind of movies they wanna watch, and we try to strike a balance between. You know, she’s not gonna vote for Possession, and he’s not gonna vote for Mountaintop Motel Massacre,” he chortles.

“They’re probably the principal advisors, as far as what we show. Of course, [Diana] has a lot of social media clout, and she’s extremely knowledgeable about pop culture. Wow! She has seen everything. She’s seen more than I’ve seen!”

While surprises are part of the fun of The Last Drive-In, Briggs previews some of what’s in store this season. “The place we normally live is the neglected ’80 slasher, and we still live there,” he assures. “But we’re gonna pay a lot more attention to the ’70s especially. I’ve always thought the ’70s are more interesting than the ’80s anyway. And we’re gonna pay attention to some really recent stuff.”

He teases, “We’re gonna bring back Joe Bob’s Summer School, which is something that we used to do at MonsterVision. And we may have a marathon. There’s a possibility of that. But I’ll be digging this new format of being on every other week between now and at least up to Labor Day.”

While Briggs’ hosting format hasn’t changed much across four decades, the world around him certainly has and that’s why The Last Drive-In remains relevant. He points out, “In the era of streaming, where everything is menus and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of choices, we are that thing called a curator that can direct you to the fun places on the spectrum of streaming.

“Streaming is very confusing for people, and a lot of people don’t like it for that reason. I hope what we’re doing is cutting through the weeds and bringing things into perspective. And, you know, it’s just more fun to watch a movie with us!” he concludes with a Texas-sized grin.

Continue Reading