Not too long ago, one of the more heated debates of all-time erupted in the BMD Slack Channel. The topic of contention for the day? Weirdly enough, it wasn't Phil's totally awful taste in Pop Tarts (may that little angel rest in peace at Fangoria), but instead which of the segments from George A. Romero's legendary Creepshow horror anthology were the very best. It was a hard, bloody battle with no clear victor at its conclusion, as the team's bond was tested to its very core.
Beyond anything else, this argument proved one simple fact: Creepshow is just the fucking best, as while everyone had a personal favorite, it was mutually agreed upon that there were no bad stories in the Pittsburgh indie auteur's EC Comics homage. Creepshow is one of the most altogether entertaining horror movies ever made, sticking with generations of film fans for decades following its original '82 release.
Like most of Romero's movies, the original score is an absolute classic, as John Harrison's cues have been widely recognized and reused throughout the years (remember when Eli Roth scored his Grindhouse trailer for Thanksgiving with one particular earworm?). But before Harrison laid down those seasick synth tracks (using only a single Prophet V), Romero utilized his usual technique of peppering in library music from the Capitol Records catalog. It was a "temp track" method of finding a movie's tone he'd been using since Night of the Living Dead ('68), whose original score was comprised of all stock music.
At a recent 35mm screening of the Dawn of the Dead ('78) workprint last Halloween here in Austin, a rather astute listener could pick up on these sound bytes, seeing where the tracks were kept in the final theatrical cut, and where they were altered with Goblin originals. It was a neat little piece of sonic trivia for the biggest die hards seated in the auditorium.
Sadly, the Waxwork Records release of the Creepshow OST was missing all of these additional stock cues, some of which had been originally included on La-La Land Records' “expanded” edition of the soundtrack. Thankfully, the fine fellow over at Camera Viscera tracked down - through exhaustive research - these missing bits of score and compiled (almost) all of them in one place. That blog is now the only site where you can find all of these tracks together online, and is a real treat for score hounds everywhere.
See if you recognize this little ditty:
This is such a super cool act of devotion on this fan's part, and all of you would do well to head on over and give them a ton of love. As fellow proud Creepshow fans, BMD tips our collective cap to CV.