Soundtrack Review: The Mist by Mark Isham (2008)

Posted by Jorn Tillnes

January 24, 2008

If you're new here, you may like to get all my posts in your feed reader using my RSS feed or get all Soundtrack Geek posts by Email. Also check out Soundtrack Fans, a new social network for soundtrack fans. Thanks for visiting!

012408 1923 reviewthemi1 Soundtrack Review: The Mist by Mark Isham (2008)

I was super excited over The Mist a few days before it arrived. Mark Isham is my composer of 2007, and don’t let the title mislead you. It’s a 2007 movie, but this soundtrack was released on January 15^th this year. Mark Isham is probably the most consistent composer in Hollywood, and I have a theory about that. I think it is because he doesn’t experiment too much, and why should he, when he has a winning formula?

Mark isham doesn’t do horror scores usually, he did the score for The Hitcher in 1986 and there has been few and far between. Does Mark Isham avoid the genre because it’s really hard to make a horror score? Quite possibly, and this time he has tried to do something different with a horror score that is quite refreshing.

When I started listening to this I thought that this had the Mark Isham sound all over it, and I was quite excited. The more I listened to it, I felt that it was a bit lacking in a musical theme. It was more of an album with ambient sounds. Granted, it is scary, and it works very well in the movie, but I expect a bit more from Mark Isham. What is also disappointing is the fact that the soundtrack is so short, it’s only 32 minutes long, and only 6 tracks og 8 are made by Mark Isham for a Isham-playtime of 21 minutes.

What’s interesting is that they have put a special film version of Dead Can Dance excellent song The Host of Seraphim on it, a pleasant surprise! All in all The Mist is a little disappointing since its Mark isham, but it’s still better than most horror scores out there. So did Mark Isham end 2007 badly or did he start 2008 badly? I’ll let you decide. Listen to the score below.