Editorials
Screamworks: John Williams’ ‘Jaws 2’
Written by Charlie Brigden
If you were to ask me what I was listening to at this moment, I’d tell you it was a playlist of short samples from an upcoming soundtrack. You’d probably shrug. But what would your reaction be that this is the eighth or ninth time I’ve played this playlist? You’d probably write me off as a crazy person. And I am a crazy person, and right now I’m going nuts for Jaws 2, or rather the imminent CD reissue.
Now this is a huge deal for me – not only do I love horror soundtracks and scores, I love those from the Jaws series (if you’re one of those queer folk who think Jaws is somehow not a horror, well, come at me bro) so seeing the second score, written again by super-composer John Williams, get its eventual dues is like seeing a movie like Halloween III get the Arrow Video treatment. The score was originally released on LP and cassette on the MCA label in 1978 when the film came out, and was issued on CD by Varese Sarabande in 1990, a disc long out of print and subsequently commanding a huge secondary market price.
Now people I imagine some will be asking “Why Jaws 2?” Well, there are a ton of reasons. Firstly, I like the movie – I think it gets a lot of short shrift, probably because it followed such a perfect flick, and it’s really a decent attempt at following but not imitating Jaws, and is a bit more in the horror movie mode as it is, for all intents and purposes, a slasher flick. The shark (actually a female, at least in Hans Searls’ novelisation) is basically a serial killer of the sea, going after sailing teenagers that are all up to no good, even getting a pretty awesome burnt face that puts her alongside Freddy and Cropsy in the barbecued-killer stakes. Also, it eats a freaking WHALE (suck it, Dino!) and a helicopter. Sadly, despite the appearance of Roy Scheider, it wasn’t Blue Thunder (that sounds like a Di Laurentiis brainstorm come to life).
And they got John Williams back to score, the guy who made the first movie so effective. The best thing is, everyone saw the shark eventually so they couldn’t really do in the suspenseful way Spielberg did it. Instead, the shark was everywhere, and this meant Williams had carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wanted. And what he did was beautiful – from the amazing underwater harps (thank you, Bernard Herrmann) that segue to the orchestral swell of the main title, to the ferocious use of the shark theme (the attack on the water skier has the most badass shark attack music) to the whole brass section shaking loose on the helicopter and poor, poor Marge (see below). Note to self: don’t ever be
friends with anyone called Brody that lives near a beach, river, or inlet.
Because Williams came back it had that classy feel, which was important for what was as much of a B-picture as you can get, but he gave it real impact. There’s a scene where Brody has just shot up the beach after thinking he sees the shark, and his kid is helping pick up his bullets. Brody looks out to the see and this cue plays, and it just really gives the picture another dimension that it maybe wouldn’t have with another composer.
And the fact is that so much of this great music has previously gone unreleased. The original album was made up of film cues, unused takes, and alternate takes, and the new CD reissue from Intrada Records (who have released many, many great horror scores previously) has two discs worth, with the entire score in film order and bonus tracks on disc one, and the original 1978 album on disc two, all assembled and mastered by the best in the business, a guy called Mike Matessino. John Williams has also supervised this release, which tells you it means business. I literally cried when I first heard the samples this morning – it sounds beautiful and it’s just so bloody great to know this is literally on our doorstep; it’s up for pre-order now and ships next week.
On the subject of horror B-pictures that followed Jaws that have amazing soundtracks, might I point you in the direction of a certain Orca – Killer Whaler. Coming between Jaws 1 and 2 in 1977, it was kind of a reversal, with a vengeful killer whale going after the bastard sea captain who murdered his mate and unborn child in a pretty gruesome scene. Orca occasionally surfaces on the usual bad movie blogs but it’s an effective picture, especially with Ennio Morricone’s emotive score. This one only had an LP release in Japan, which was reissued in the 90’s on CD by an Italian label. Sound quality isn’t great, so hopefully this won’t be too far behind Jaws 2 – it’s certainly the best of the Jaws rip-offs musically (and probably not far behind in film quality – behind Piranha I guess).
Charlie Brigden is a longtime horror nerd who runs his own site about film scores and soundtracks, Films On Wax. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter as well as subscribe to his podcast on Soundcloud.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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