Welcome back, groovin’ guys and ghouls! Put your deadphones on and crank up your scare-eo as we examine more of the best and weirdest of Haunt music soundtracks.

Horror Circus from Introsound is our first offering this issue. As this CD’s title makes clear, its main attraction is a carnival theme, although some of the tracks would work well for other settings too. The opener, Horror Hoedown, is a delightfully frightfu1 mix of catchy pseudo-Goth carnival music with screams and other sound FX thrown in. The screams sound a little too much like teenagers on a roller coaster for my tastes, but the music is ideal for “Killer Klown” skits, magic shows or other scenes with a “circus of horrors” theme. Most of the other six tracks are very specific in their settings and will thus be of limited use for most Haunted Attractions. In spite of some monster growls, the mean-spirited Monster Munch Party track, a wild mixture of sounds including breaking glass, crumbling walls and crying victims are uncomfortably realistic in the wake of the 9/11 tragedies, but could be used in a very specific scene. The long and hokey Lifeforce Radio would really work for a Halloween party or home video use. It reminds me more of a clip from an old sci-fi movie than “haunting” background noise. The final track, Busted, is only useful if you want to pull an obnoxious (but admittedly funny) prank on a roomful of party­goers, and even then it needs to be played from outdoors, outside a window, for maximum effect. Its staging of the arrival of law enforcement officers intent on breaking up a party is a clever, inventive scenario that makes for the perfect finale to any shindig you’re ready to bring to an end! Horror Circus may not be perfect for the average Haunt, but the CDs opening and closing tracks are offbeat and imaginative enough to make it a worthwhile addition to any ghoulish music collection.

Staying with the circus theme, let’s move on to the Michael Hedstrom CD Midnight Circus. This one is more consistently devoted to the “dark carnival” setting than our previous “clown’de hauntue.” Most of these tracks are devotedly injected into the circus vein, and their more restrained use of extraneous sound FX and vocals will make this CD much easier for most Haunts to use. The first track, Clown Alley, sounds so much like the theme from the movie Beetlejuice that it could easily be mistaken for that soundtrack (or a number of others by Danny Elfman for that matter). That said, if your Haunt has a “funny bone,” there are numerous musical (de)compositions here that will perfectly capture a wacky, off-kilter mood without the use of specific movie scores. Arrangement and production of the music is quite accomplished, offering some of the most professional sounding and complex melodies you’re likely to find on a Halloween CD. If you plan on doing scenes that involve clowns, freaks, humorous ghosts or other tongue-in-cheek terrors, you’ll find that the thoughtfully designed and impressively recorded Midnight Circus is a useful collection of tunes with a morbidly funny edge. The 11th and final track of the CD is a teaser for Hedstrom’s next album: Clive Manor.

2001 a1so saw the release of Pumpkinland III, the third (obviously) in a series of Haunted Attraction soundtrack CDs from Nobody Records. As with the previous pair of Pumpkinlands, number III’s greatest strength is its impressive use of deep, low-pitched, rumbling notes and noises to induce anxiety. From a purely musical stand­point this CD is not going to win a Grammy. It consists mainly of simple, repetitious, slow beats enhanced here and there with subtle sounds like dripping water or echoing footsteps. All seven tracks go for the same basic gloomy mood and all utilize similarly slow, pounding rhythms. It doesn’t have much to offer in the way of varied scores for specific scenes, but it does make for a CD that can simply be left on to play through over and over in its entirety, maintaining a constant mood of unease without driving actors insane with the same exact minute or two’s worth of music going all night long. Even though the tracks have specific titles like Procession, Docks, and Graveyard, none of them sounds recognizably like any particular scenario. This can be a plus or a minus depending on your point of view and taste in scoring. Although there’s nothing drastically fresh or groundbreaking on Pumpkinland III, it still offers plenty of nice generic background noise for any haunter who has a sound system that will allow those low notes to do their job (which is of course to really shake the floorboards right under patrons’ feet). It should also be noted that the “Pumpkin Guy” cover illustration by Mike Fisher is outstanding.

So until next time, creepers of the night, this is DJ.DK pulling the plug on another finely tuned piece of prolific prose!

Ordering Information
Introsound
805-382-1150
Fax 805-382-9229
567 Channel Island Blvd. #366
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
introsound@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/introsound/private/default.htm

Hedstorm Productions
1724 Meadows Ave.
East Peoria, IL 61611
309-698 9164
hedstormproductions@hedstorm.net
www.hedstorm.net

Nobody Records
www.13thtrack.com/
2238 South Shore Center
Box 141
Alameda CA 94501-5723
888-392-4832 ext. 291
pumpkinlandstudios@yahoo.com
www.nobodyrecords.com/