Reviewed by Chris McEneany, 31st October 2009
Well, at this time of the year – and as I write this, the score is playing, there are trick or treaters outside and the entire house has been transformed into a horror theme-park – I can hardly think of a score that I can recommend more than this exemplary showcase for hyped-up electronica, dazzlingly atmospheric ambience and one of the most distinctive main themes in genre history given an incredibly revitalised
crystalline cadence. Carpenter would deviate from his own well-worn path almost immediately after this, by having the great Ennio Morricone score The Thing – although both he and Howarth did supply a degree of music, themselves, for the Antarctic classic that barely saw the light of day. And, barring Christine, Big Trouble In Little China and Prince Of Darkness, it is debatable if he ever returned to such composing glories. Certainly his
own crafted scores have been surprisingly poor and it is only the additional work done by the likes of the late Shirley Walker and other collaborators that have saved them from sub-par atmospherics.
Michael Myers walks and stalks again in this supreme score. Alan Howarth gets tremendous kudos for his revamped approach to Carpenter's original and undying material. There is a level of simplistic brutality here that flips the bird at conventional symphonic bravura, and carves out a mesmerising path to the dark side that is possibly beyond equal in terms of signature, distinction and cut-to-the-bone suspense.
Folks, I cannot convey
enough just how good this recording sounds. There are many occasions when the hairs literally stand up in the delicate beauty of the inordinately glacial resonance. I, myself, almost always prefer the full orchestral approach to such scores, but there is no denying the power and raw immediacy of the music for Halloween II.
No tricks, then … just a treat from start to finish.
Happy Halloween!
Read the full review... 
31-10-2009, 12:35 PM
E. & O.E.
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