Tony Black reviews the Ghostbusters score…
Music has always been synonymous with Ghostbusters, part of its intrinsic place in pop culture thanks to Ray Parker Jr’s iconic theme tune which helped cement the original movie as one of the key films of the 80’s. The score often gets lost in the shadow of that, so without another barnstorming chart topping hit to dominate, does Theodore Shapiro’s score for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters remake strike a chord and linger in the memory? To my surprise, it does, given Shapiro previously has been best known for a string of unremarkable, largely comedy movie scores, though he did decent work last year for Feig on his fun comedy Spy.
Here, Shapiro crafts a score which may end up lingering in the memory longer than the movie, delivering a mixture of not just traditional orchestral action beats but also a reworked, chugged up Ghostbusters theme woven within the piece without too much intrusion, not to mention an otherworldly sense of Gothic spectral apparition. It’s surprisingly effective.
Shapiro throws us right in with ‘The Aldridge Mansion’, set to the opening ghostly set piece, which introduces the operatic choir alongside heavy strings and hints of an organ signalling spectral doom. ‘Distinct Human Form’ then even dares to channel some Avengers-era Alan Silvestri, suggesting an heroic theme among the theme park, Gothic strings. It’s ‘Subway Ghost Attack’ where Shapiro reaches a level of orchestral complexity which belies his history of scoring largely throwaway comedies; he engages a variety of instruments to complement a major opening action sequence, repeated later in ‘Behemoth’ and the concluding tracks as the eponymous busters of ghosts protect New York City in force. Shapiro even manages to drip feed a rousing orchestral version of the classic Parker. Jr theme (covered in the movie end credits by Fall Out Boy & Missy Elliott, but let’s not talk about that). At times it jars a tough but it caps off tracks like ‘Ley Lines’ very nicely – you can see Shapiro having fun with the material and it further engages you with the music.
It doesn’t perhaps equal Elmer Bernstein’s original score for the 80’s Ghostbusters, but this is possibly Theodore Shapiro’s finest work so far. A fun, sometimes thrilling, occasionally creepy score which elevates the comedy stylistics on screen nicely, and while you may still always remember Ghostbusters for the theme tune, don’t write off this orchestral piece too quickly.
Rating: 8/10
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Originally published July 20, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
