Soundtrack Review: Shutter by Nathan Barr (2008)

Posted by Jorn Tillnes

April 18, 2008

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041408-0324-soundtrackr1 Soundtrack Review: Shutter by Nathan Barr (2008)

This is a review of the motion picture score for Shutter by Nathan Barr.

Horror composer Nathan Barr is back with the latest Japanese horror US remake Shutter. Although it’s probably wrong to call him a horror composer, I mostly remember him from Hostel and Hostel Part II. He has composed for about 30 movies, and this year he will compose for the movie Tortured and “The Slammin’ Salmon”, in addition to a Television series, a vampire drama called “True Blood”. I liked Hostel Part II quite a bit, and hope Shutter is up there with that, even better, maybe as good as The Eye. This is the track list of Shutter:

Welcome To Tokyo
We Hit A Girl!
Tgk
Making Love
Alone In Tokyo
The Spirit Room
The Argument
Fly In The Eye
Visiting Murase
Jane Visits Tgk
The Truth
I Saw Megumi
Driving To Megumi’s
Rest In Peace
Flip Book
The Whole Truth
Psych Ward
Good To Me

It’s a solid 18 tracks for a total play time of 45:16. Horror scores have a tendency to be short, but this is an ok length, because I know horror scores have a lot of music. I like it most when the music in horror movies isn’t just ambient or background noise, but becomes a part of the movie like in Marco Beltrami’s “The Eye”. I will compare this score to “The Eye”, not because they both are US remakes of their Japanese horror counterparts, but because I thought “The Eye” sets the standard for horror scores so far this year. At first listen, I am happy to say that these two scores do have certain elements in common. Shutter is more horror-like than “The Eye” because it has parts who is there to scare the sh** out of you. What I like though, is that a lot of it is instrumental, like “The Eye”, it feels like a “proper” score, but there’s definitely a sense of horror.

Nathan Barr is a big fan of string instruments, and in this case it’s really good. Strings can be a horrifying instrument when put to good use. It is very haunting and dark at times, and sometimes it’s used as background noise, sometimes to make a theme. He also uses the harp a lot, which ironically is not a dark instrument, but Nathan Barr use it to great effect here as it is his way of playing a theme. You might not hear a theme throughout this score if you don’t listen because it’s subtle, but it’s there. All in all, I am happy with this score. It is definitely more scary than “The Eye”, and that’s a good thing right? Well, it probably is, and in that respect, it should score higher, but I still think “The Eye” is better overall as it is a new way of scoring horror, more thematic beautiful themes. Listen to Shutter by Nathan Barr below: